Attributes on array definitions
Arrays can be defined with attributes, to complete the type description.
Syntax
In type specifications, the attributes-list clause is:
{
ATTRIBUTE |
ATTRIBUTES }
( attribute [
= "value" ]
[
,...]
)
- attribute is the name of a definition attribute.
- value is the value for the definition attribute, it is optional for boolean attributes.
Usage
Arrays can be defined with the ATTRIBUTES()
clause, to specify meta-data
information for the array type.
In the next code example, the array type definition gets definition attributes, to specify the
corresponding field names for JSON serialization:
IMPORT util
TYPE t_items DYNAMIC ARRAY ATTRIBUTES(json_name="items") OF
RECORD
item_num INTEGER ATTRIBUTES(json_name="id"),
item_desc VARCHAR(50)
END RECORD
DEFINE stock RECORD
itemlist t_items
END RECORD
MAIN
LET stock.itemlist[1].item_num = 998
LET stock.itemlist[1].item_desc = "Hand gloves"
LET stock.itemlist[2].item_num = 999
LET stock.itemlist[2].item_desc = "Blue hat"
DISPLAY util.JSON.format(util.JSON.stringify(stock))
END MAIN
Output:
{
"items": [
{
"id": 998,
"item_desc": "Hand gloves"
},
{
"id": 999,
"item_desc": "Blue hat"
}
]
}
For more details, see Type attributes.
Attributes meta-data belong to the type
When not using a user-defined TYPE
, a variable definition with a primitive type or complex type such as a
RECORD
, DYNAMIC ARRAY
or DICTIONARY
, creates an
anonymous type.
If the ATTRIBUTES
clause is used, this meta-data information belongs to the type
definition, it does not belong to the variable.