In some programming languages, hashes are a simple concept:
You give a "keyword" and the hash will return a "value". This is very helpful for linking two values etc...
I want to do something similar for my application:
Basically depending on what items from a checkList are checked, another list is populated by text lines.
So, is it possible to create some kind of table where if I send a keyword it will return to me with a text line?
A good example is a shopping catalog. You check an item, and a list has to show the item's description, right?
I think you are looking for Dictionary(Of TKey, TValue).
There are some examples of how to use it in the documentation on MDSN. There are also some more examples on dotnetperls.
Related
I would like to know how I can convert elements of a column of a DataTable to a list of type string, grouping the elements to avoid repetition.
For example my DataTable would look like this
DataTable
and I want to make a list containing the elements of only "User" without repeating itself using LINQ.
The code I was trying to use is
InvoiceList = InvoiceDT.AsEnumerable().GroupBy(Function(r) r("User").ToString).ToList(Function(g) g.ToList())
But it doesn't work for me since I am new to LINQ and still have problems forming the structures.
I'd use this:
InvoiceList = InvoiceDT.AsEnumerable().Select(Function(r) r("User").ToString()).Distinct().ToList()
If you wanted a GroupBy solution it's
InvoiceList = InvoiceDT.AsEnumerable().GroupBy(Function(r) r("User").ToString()).Select(Function(g) g.Key).ToList()
Where your code went wrong was in trying to pass a delegate to ToList; it doesn't take one (and you wouldn't ToList the g either, as it's a list of data rows with all varying properties).
To reshape our IGrouping (something like a list of objects that all share the same Key, which is a property of the list that the IGrouping represents) produced by the groupby into a sequence of string Keys we Select the Key, and then ToList that
There is a lot of back and forthing between developers over things like ToList vs ToArray - some people universally use ToList because, for collections of an unknown number of elements, both list and array will grow and resize repeatedly in the same way but using ToArray requires one additional resizing step at the end to trim off any unused slots. Mostly that's trivial in terms of an overall performance consideration and should be weighed against the benefit of releasing the memory with the trim. Getting into finer details is way beyond the scope of this answer but you can read some huge blog posts about it.
I personally think it's more important to generate sensible code by calling the method that results in the relevant type depending on what you plan to do with it; I ToList if I need List functionality (add/insert/remove).. I prefer ToArray if an array suits the follow-on purposes (read/write/random access, no insert or delete), and if I'll only ever enumerate it I don't To... anything at all - I just ForEach the result of the query, which can give a bigger performance boost than anything else because it means I may not have to enumerate the entire set (if I stop early) or allocate memory all at once for doing so (if I'm writing to a socket or file)
On the use of ToString; it's worth avoiding if you think you'll fall into a pattern where you do it on every column just to get a string. If the column is already a string it's an acceptable way to get the object that DataRow.Item gives you, into a string. If the column is another type it's better to cast it:
DirectCast(r("Age"), Integer)
r.Field(Of Integer)("Age")
Thing is, it's verbose, and ugly, and intellisense doesn't help you out with writing Age or knowing it's an Int. LINQ in VB is bad enough for verbosity without pouring gas on that fire. If you're working with datatables of a known structure, it's a lot nicer if you make strongly typed ones:
Add a new file of type DataSet to your project
Open it so the design surface appears. In the properties grid call it something reasonable, such as AccountsDataSet
Right click, Add Table, call it Invoices
Right click the emppty table, Add Column, call it User
Then use it like:
Dim dt as new AccountsDataSet.InvoicesDataTable
Populate it like:
dt.AddInvoicesRow("John Smith", ... other properties here)
Query it like:
dt.Select(Function(r) r.User).Distinct()
Much nicer than accessing column names by string, and having them be objects that need casting..
Consider the dataset generator as a way to quickly, visually, create poco classes with named, typed properties
Try this
dim list as List(of string) = InvoiceDT.Rows.
Cast(of DataRow)().
Select(Function(r) r("User").ToString()).
Distinct().
ToList()
Here you cast Row collection as IEnumerable(of DataRow), rest is trivial
In String Template one can easily get an element of a Java Map within the template.
Is it possible to get the n-th element of an array in a similar way?
According to the String Template Cheat Sheet you can easily get the first or second element:
You can combine operations to say things like first(rest(names)) to get second element.
but it doesn't seem possible to get the n-th element easily. I usually transform my list into a map with list indexes as keys and do something like
map.("25")
Is there some easier/more straightforward way?
Sorry, there is no mechanism to get a[i].
There is no easy way getting n-th element of the list.
In my opinion this indicates that your view and business logic are not separated enough: knowledge of what magic number 25 means is spread in both tiers.
One possible solution might be converting list of values to object which provides meaning to the elements. For example, lets say list of String represents address lines, in which case instead of map.("3") you would write address.street.
I'm extracting terms from the query calling ExtractTerms() on the Query object that I get as the result of QueryParser.Parse(). I get a HashTable, but each item present as:
Key - term:term
Value - term:term
Why are the key and the value the same? And more why is term value duplicated and separated by colon?
Do highlighters only insert tags or to do anything else? I want not only to get text fragments but to highlight the source text (it's big enough). I try to get terms and by offsets to insert tags by hand. But I worry if this is the right solution.
I think the answer to this question may help.
It is because .Net 2.0 doesnt have an equivalent to java's HashSet. The conversion to .Net uses Hashtables with the same value in key/value. The colon you see is just the result of Term.ToString(), a Term is a fieldname + the term text, your field name is probably "term".
To highlight an entire document using the Highlighter contrib, use the NullFragmenter
I've come to the point where I need to store some additional data about where a particular field comes from in my Lucene.Net index. Specifically, I want to attach a guid to certain fields of a document when the field is added to the document, and retrieve it again when I get the document from a search result.
Is this possible?
Edit:
Okay, let me clarify a bit by giving an example.
Let's say I have an object that I want to allow the user to tag with custom tags like "personal", "favorite", "some-project". I do this by adding multiple "tag" fields to the document, like so:
doc.Add( new Field( "tag", "personal" ) );
doc.Add( new Field( "tag", "favorite" ) );
The problem is I now need to record some meta data about each individual tag itself, specifically a guid representing where that tag came from (imagine it as a user id). Each tag could potentially have a different guid, so I can't simply create a "tag-guid" field (unless the order of the values is preserved---see edit 2 below). I don't need this metadata to be indexed (and in fact I'd prefer it not to be, to avoid getting hits on metadata), I just need to be able to retrieve it again from the document/field.
doc.GetFields( "tag" )[0].Metadata...
(I'm making up syntax here, but I hope my point is clear now.)
Edit 2:
Since this is a completely different question, I've posted a new question for this approach: Is the order of multi-valued fields in Lucene stable?
Okay let's try another approach... The key problem area is the indeterminacy of the multiple field values under the same field name (e.g. "tag"). If I could introduce or obtain some kind of determinacy here, I might be able to store the metadata in another field.
For example, if I could rely on the order of the values of the field never changing, I could use an index in the set of values to identify exactly which tag I am referring to.
Is there any guarantee that the order I add the values to a field will remain the same when I retrieve the document at a later time?
Depending on your search requirements for this index, this may be possible. That way you can control the order of fields. It would require updating both fields as the tag list changes of course, but the overhead may be worth it.
doc.Add(new Field("tags", "{personal}|{favorite}"));
doc.Add(new Field("tagsref", "{1234}|{12345}"));
Note: using the {} allows you to qualify your search for uniqueness where similar values exist.
Example: If values were stored as "person|personal|personage" searching for "person" would return a document that has any one of person, personal or personage. By qualifying in curly brackets like so: "{person}|{personal}|{personage}", I can search for "{person}" and be sure it won't return false positives. Of course, this assumes you don't use curly brackets in your values.
I think you're asking about payloads.
Edit: From your use case, it sounds like you have no desire to use this metadata in your search, you just want it there. (Basically, you want to use Lucene as a database system.)
So, why can't you use a binary field?
ExtraData ed = new ExtraData { Tag = "tag", Type = "personal" };
byte[] byteData = BinaryFormatter.Serialize(ed); // this isn't the correct code, but you get the point
doc.Add(new Field("myData", byteData, Field.Store.YES));
Then you can deserialize it on retrieval.
how should I name array that holds widths of columns? I would use:
int[] columnsWidths;
but I saw in many places names like:
columnWidths
or
colWidths
Of course "widths of columns" is only an example.
Moreover, I think there is also another case, when 2 words are not 2 separate words, but create some kind of name, e.g.
class TableView
How in this case variable's name should look like?
TableView[] tableViews;
or
TableView[] tablesViews;
Read Code Complete. But there is no right or wrong answer -- choose what suits you and your colleagues and be consistent.