The individual pieces that make up an array are called elements. The elements are numbered from 1 to the size of the array. Arrays can have up to 32,767 elements. The number used to indicate a specific element of the array is called the array index. A specific element of the array is referenced in sanScript using its corresponding array index.
An array can be used in place of several fields that have the same data type and will be storing similar information. For example, if an application keeps track of monthly sales for a year, one monthly sales array field with an array size of 12 could be used to store this information instead of 12 separate fields.
Dexterity applications can use array fields and array local variables. Array fields are created in the Field Definition window by setting the Array Size field to the size of the array. Array local variables are created by including the size of the array in brackets – [ ] – following the local variable name. When creating local arrays, the array size must be a constant expression. Array sizes can’t be set at runtime.
To access the elements of an array from within a script, simply use the name of the array and add the index number of the element you want to reference. Be sure the index number is included in square brackets after the name of the array and before the qualifier. The following example sets the third element of the Quarterly Sales array field (corresponding to the third quarter) to the sum of the monthly sales for July, August and September.
'Quarterly Sales'[3] = 'Jul Sales' + 'Aug Sales' + 'Sep Sales';
The following example uses a local array field with five elements to act as status flags for the script. The for loop initializes the flags to false.
local boolean status[5]; local integer i; for i = 1 to 5 do status[i] = false; end for;