Dictionary properties

Each property/value entry is syntactically equivalent to a key/value entry, as shown in the following example. The entries can be in any order:

  myRef Dictionary 
    { 
      // properties 
      caseSensitive = no,
      ordering = none,  
     
      // key/value pairs
      ID        = 5,
      lastName  = "Twain",
      firstName = "Mark",
      age = 30
    };

The following properties are available:

caseSensitive

Indicates whether case affects key access. The following options are available:

NO (the default)

The case of the key does not affect key access. The following statements are equivalent:

  age = row.age;
  age = row.AGE;
  age = row["aGe"];

YES

The following statements can have different results, even though EGL is primarily a case-insensitive language:

  age = row.age;
  age = row.AGE;
  age = row["aGe"];

The value of the caseSensitive property affects the behavior of several of the functions described in Dictionary functions.

ordering

Determines the order of the keys that you retrieve. The value of this property affects the behavior of the functions getKeys() and getValues(). For more information, see Dictionary functions. The value of the property does not affect the way the dictionary stores the keys (always in the order you entered them), but the order in which you can retrieve them.

Use the OrderingKind enumeration to specify values for this property. The OrderingKind enumeration has the following values:

none (the default)

Your code cannot rely on the order of key/value entries. When you call the getKeys() function, the order of keys might not match the order of values when you call the getValues() function.

byInsertion

getKeys() returns keys and getValues() returns values in the order you inserted them. Any entries in the declaration are considered to be inserted first, in left-to-right order.

byKey

getKeys() returns keys and getValues() returns values in key order. (See "Compatibility" later in this topic.)

When you declare a dictionary variable in your program, you can include any of the EGL field level properties (see Field-level properties). If you use any of these properties, which are not specific to the Dictionary part, you must precede the property declaration with an @ operator, and use the appropriate syntax. For more information, see @ operator.