*explode return array size.

[Emistry]

http://herc.ws/board/topic/7489-explode-to-push-arraysize/

[dastgirp]

This would fail.
Consider I am using
explode .@str$[5],"a,b",",";
The size would return 7
But I would have expected the size to be 2

Also, if one part is returning value,
All other fail condition should return 0 too.

[Emistry]

I believe it should stay as 7 ..... if it returned 2, it could lead to false array size value if the users have assigned value at the first 5 index of the array.
even though the array could be stored with "empty" string, it's still count as 1.

if it return 2, the script might potentially overwritten any value in the array if the users used the returned value next.

[dastgirp]

Explode must return how many indexes it has written to according to me...
Like I have custom script, in which I want to use explode from end of my array, so in that case,I would have assumed the return value is new indexes that's been added. And not the size...

Maybe let someone else chime in to discuss what's better
@MishimaHaruna

[Emistry]

it's the same case.

setarray .@array,0,0,0,0,0,1,2;   // array size = 7.  not 2...
setarray .@array,0,0,0,1,2,0,0;  // array size = 5, not 7, not 2 ...

the purpose of this changes was to reduce the usage of getarraysize() after used explode().

[MishimaHaruna]

In my opinion, the main problem here is that it's like getarraysize(), but not quite the same.
The value returned in this pull request isn't the size of the (non-sparse) array, like getarraysize returns, but rather, the index of the last element written + 1. This is especially confusing in case you're adding/overwriting elements in an array that wasn't previously empty:

.@array$[10] = "foo";
debugmes getarraysize(.@array$); // 11
.@str$ = "a,b,c,d";
debugmes explode(.@array$[2], .@str$, ","); // 6
debugmes getarraysize(.@array$); // 11 != 6

I think this is misleading. I'd rather return the number of elements written, like Dastgir suggests. That way, if you need the index of the last element written, you can still retrieve it, since you know the index of the first element written:

.@array$[10] = "foo";
.@str$ = "a,b,c,d";
.@n = explode(.@array$[2], .@str$, ",");
debugmes .@n + " " + (2+.@n) + " " + getarraysize(.@array$); // 4 6 11 (elements written, index of the first element after the last written, size of the array)

On a side note, I just noticed the explode function leaks memory. The aMalloc call needs to be moved to after the various checks (just above the while). I'll fix that after this pull request is edited and merged (unless someone wants to do it before)

[MishimaHaruna]

Taking ownership of this. I'll handle the problems mentioned

[MishimaHaruna]

Merged as 6a0093b, thank you