Hi Bard,
Aha.
you wrote:
>
>The problem is that I'm working with things I don't understand and I can't
>find good documentation. I found some code to connect to an email
>server. Something like this:
>----------------------
>x: [
> scheme: 'pop
> user: "srad"
> pass: "portw"
> host: "mail.aneurosmith.com"
> ]
>
>open x
>------------------------
>
>I don't understand this array which looks like a structure.
What you're looking at here is a block. This block will be used by 'open to
create an object it will use to control the way it accesses srad's email
account. An object is created like so:
obj: make object! [ some-word: "some-string-value" another-word: 3 ]
Now the words in the object can be used:
>> print obj/some-word
some-string-value
>> > 0 obj/another-word
== false
>> < 0 obj/another-word
== true
As you mention, you can do a block that contains assignments:
>> value? 'some-word
== false
>> do [ some-word: "some-string-value" another-word: 3 ]
== 3
>> value? 'some-word
== true
Normally we use blocks because we want to keep a sequence of values bundled
together. We may want access the values by names (similar to a struct in C
or a record in Pascal). This is possible by using paths:
>> a: [ some-word "some-string-value" another-word 3 ]
>> print a/some-word
some-string-value
>> > 0 a/another-word
== false
>> < 0 a/another-word
== true
or by using select:
>> select a 'some-word ;- note the tick mark in front of some-word
== "some-string-value"
Hope this helps,
Elan
