Re: equivalent for C-style init: structname varname[] = {...} ?

[Yury Tarasievich]

On 11/14/2012 08:05 PM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso 
wrote:
> .On 14 November 2012 11:32, Yury T. <address@hidden> wrote:
...
> > Actually, not so. Here's adaptation of my recent example with access to an
> > individual fields of an item selected by arbitrary key. Reads almost
> > naturally, right?
>
> You've changed the problem. What you've shown me here does not have
> the ID and Data fields. Instead, you've made the field names be the id
> names. If this is way you want to arrange the data, then a struct
> array is probablyl not optimal.

I didn't change the problem. Both ID and data 
fields are there, only they have identical 
(string) values.


> Let me explain something. Seryozha's "consistent_struct" is his
> rebellion against struct arrays. His complaint is that struct("field",

...etc. His feelings are somewhat substantiated, 
you know. As I, personally, find it easier to 
seek answers to trickier Octave problems not 
with a help of the documentation first, but in 
Google, I believe one might feel certain 
irritation in such circumstances. I browsed the 
cell and struct arrays sections of the doc right 
now, and I feel some, too. This doc is written 
for somebody who has fair knowledge of the 
matter already. Somebody with, say, C background 
would find it tricky to get answers from it.

You'll notice I'm not questioning the design 
decisions, only the way of their documenting. 
Ditto for the Sergei not understanding the 
syntax conventions, which are frankly not very 
intuitive indeed (and why are using diminutives 
of Sergei's name in this manner -- surely that's 
somewhat in bad taste?)

> This actually has uncovered a bug in Octave. Field names are supposed
> to not contain certain characters. In this regard, getfield(s, "foo")

To fathom my Octave ignorance, know that I do 
not understand what are the field names here. 
First strings?

...
> I really recommend you don't take advice from SS. He repeatedly
> insists on refusing to learn Octave and compares it to Perl instead.
> Do you really want to take advice from someone who considers Perl to
> be best language ever written? Maybe you do, but in that case, perhaps
> you would be happier with Perl instead of Octave.

Well Jordi, I think I'll just judge the advice 
on its own merits. :) I came to the list in the 
hope of getting sort of well-known advice, some 
second-level FAQ or something. I didn't expect 
this kind of discussion. :)

Yury