REBOL 3.0

FOREACH on objects

Carl Sassenrath, CTO
REBOL Technologies
23-Apr-2009 17:55 GMT

Article #0192
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Here's a common coding pattern: iterating over the words (and values) of an object:

foreach word words-of my-object [
     do-something-with word
]

The suggestion was made to support such a loop directly:

foreach word my-object [
     do-something-with word
]

and also allow:

foreach [word value] my-object [
     do-something-else-with word value
]

The benefit is that no intermediate block of words is constructed.

This change has been added to the A49 release.

Examples:

>> foreach word system/options [?? word]
word: boot
word: home
word: path
word: flags
word: script
word: args
word: do-arg
word: import
word: debug
word: secure
word: version
word: quiet
word: binary-base
word: decimal-digits
word: module-paths
word: file-types

Note that the word is bound back to the object, so can be used to access the value (with get).

However, it also supports:

>> foreach [word value] system/options [print [word mold value]]
boot %/C/rebol/r3/make/view/Debug/view.exe
home %/C/rebol/r3/make/
path %/C/rebol/r3/make/view/Debug/
flags [true]
script none
args none
do-arg none
import none
debug none
secure none
version none
quiet false
binary-base 16
decimal-digits 15
module-paths [%./]
file-types [%.bmp bmp %.gif gif %.png png %.jpg %.jpeg jpeg]

Be careful with hidden (protected) variables. The loop will skip them:

>> foreach word system/state [?? word]
word: note
word: last-error

The state object contains more than two fields, but they are not accessible to user code for security reasons.

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REBOL 3.0
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