This is a mirror of http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=171

The new version requires Vim 6.3.

This is an array library useful for script developers.

I started off from the lightWeightArray.vim script as a basis and created this
more complete script to call it an array. You can now manipulate the Vim's
multi-valued variables or create your own using this script. This makes it easy
for you to support variables having multiple values and familiar for the users
of your script.

See file header for function prototypes.

- An array is nothing but a string of multiple values separated by a
  pattern.  The simplest example being Vim's multi-value variables such as
  tags. You can use the MvAddElement() function to create an array.
  However, there is nothing special about this function, you can as well
  make up the string by simply concatinating elements with the chosen
  pattern as a separator.
- The separator can be any regular expression (which means that if you
  want to use regex metacharacters in a non-regex pattern, then you need
  to protect the metacharacters with backslashes). However, if a regular
  expression is used as a separtor, you need to pass in a second separator,
  which is a plain string that guarantees to match the separator regular
  expression, as an additional argument (which was not the case with
  earlier versions). When the array needs to be modified (which is
  internally done by some of the reader functions also) this sample
  separator is used to preserve the integrity of the array.
- If you for example want to go over the words in a sentence, then an easy
  way would be to treat the sentence as an array with '\s\+' as a
  separator pattern. Be sure not to have zero-width expressions in the
  pattern as these would otherwise confuse the plugin.
- Suggested usage to go over the elements is to use the iterater functions
  as shows in the below example
  Ex Usage:
    " The below pattern avoids protected comma's from getting treated as
    "   separators.
    call MvIterCreate(&tags, '\\\@<!\(\\\\\)*\zs,', 'Tags', ',')
    while MvIterHasNext('Tags')
      call input('Next element: ' . MvIterNext('Tags'))
    endwhile
    call MvIterDestroy('Tags')
                                                                            
ALMOST ALL OPERATIONS TAKE THE ARRAY AND THE SEPARATOR AS THE FIRST TWO
  ARGUMENTS.
All element-indexes start from 0 (like in C++ or Java).
All string-indexes start from 0 (as it is for Vim built-in functions).



Please let me know of any bugs and problems that you face.


Search_key_words: array arrays multvals sort multiple values multivals Hari Krishna Dara