Associative array with int as key - actionscript-3

In my application I want to have a dictionnary where the key is an integer.
Since it's an integer, I use normal Array :
var arr : Array = [];
arr[5] = anObject;
arr[82] = anOtherObject;
When I iterate with for each, no problem, it iterates through those 2 object. The problem is that arr.length return 83... So I have to create a variable that count the number as I modify the array.
Question 1 : Is there a best practice for that (IE: associative array with int as key)? I hesitated to use a Dictionnary.
Question 2 : Does flash allocates memory for the unused buckets of the array?

Arrays in flash are sparse (unlike Vector), so the empty entries will not be allocated. If you need to know the length, you will probably need to keep track of it manually (make a wrapper class perhaps).
Adobe says:
Arrays are sparse arrays, meaning there might be an element at index 0 and another at index 5, but nothing in the index positions between those two elements. In such a case, the elements in positions 1 through 4 are undefined, which indicates the absence of an element, not necessarily the presence of an element with the value undefined.

Related

MySQL: Can we create an array (associative or not) as a MySQL server script variable? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How to store arrays in MySQL?
(7 answers)
Closed 10 months ago.
I've seen a lot of SQL server script variables of this kind: #variable. But can we, in fact, store an array (associative or not) behind the #variable?
UPDATE
This question turns out to be a duplicate of this one, which suggests to consider possible using of:
SET type and JSON type, which seem to be only column types but not #variable types.
A TEMPORARY TABLE, which seem to be stored in HDD (right?).
Functions working with JSON strings (e.g., JSON_VALUE and JSON_LENGTH), which are usable entirely within MySQL server script. Although, these functions do not help to derive an array and store it in a #variable and are merely JSON walkarounds. I would accept this variant but it seems like #json_string is parsed each time we call JSON_VALUE(#json_string).
So, till now it seems that there IS an opportunity to CREATE an array (associative or not!) but there IS NO an opportunity to surely KEEP the array for its further processing!
Regarding the question mentioned in the beginning of this one. Right now I've only reached 5th and 6th answers, which are related to JSON strings. They are interesting! Be sure to check them out if you're interested in the subject!
Thanks to everyone for your time!
UPDATE
As #Panagiotis Kanavos has mentioned, fetching data by value is slower in case of arrays.
But what if:
We indeed want to simply iterate over M input arrays simultaneously and produce N output arrays? (Maybe, we are simply interested in collation of parameters along a timeline and keep the results.) Arrays are perfectly suitable for this task. But of course, in this case we can still use tables. The question is what will be faster? If our iterative process involves many requests to arrays' elements (can we rely on the server caching the M input arrays and that they'll always be at hand?) and creation of multiple result arrays (how long will it take in case of tables and how do we know that tables are created in RAM for fast access?)?
We want to create an array manually along the course of a server script and are going to only use it in C-like style (aren't going to fetch its data by value) and after the script execution there'll be no need in the array? So, this will be a classic C-like script-only array. To me, in this case putting the array directly into the RAM is what we need and will be more effective than table creation (which'll probably go to HDD), won't it?
And so, the 2nd (and more general) question arises: How far can we rely on the server's optimizations?
I understand that a huge work's been put in optimization in many ways. But has somebody met a situation when a server didn't optimize in the best way? When a programmer had to explicitly rearrange the code in order to manually bring it to the optimal state?
MySQL will implement a data type, ARRAY, to store
variable-sized arrays, in compliance with Standard
SQL (SQL:2003) array functionality.
Syntax
Add a new column data type:
ARRAY [[ may be any data type supported (except
for ARRAY itself, and REF, which MySQL does not support).
It defines the type of data that the array will contain.
-- The [] must be an unsigned integer
greater than zero. It defines the maximum cardinality of
the array, rather than its exact size. Note that the inner
set of brackets is mandatory when defining an array with
a specific size, e.g. INT ARRAY is correct for defining an
array with the default size, INT ARRAY[5] is the correct syntax
for defining an array that will contain 5 elements.
-- As shown in the syntax diagram, []
is optional. If omitted, the maximum cardinality of the
array defaults to an implementation-defined default value.
Oracle's VARRAY size is limited to the maximum number of
columns allowed in a table, so I suggest we make our default
match that maximum. Thus, if [] is omitted,
the maximum cardinality of the array defaults to 1000, which
should also be the absolute maximum cardinality. Thus:
-- [] defaults to 1000.
-- [] may range from 1 to 1000.
Function
An array is an ordered collection of elements, possibly
containing data values. The ARRAY data type will be used
to store data arrays in database tables.
Rules
-- An array is an ordered set of elements.
-- The maximum number of elements in the array is known as
the array's maximum cardinality. The maximum cardinality is
defined at the time the array is defined, as is the element
data type.
-- The actual number of elements that contain data values is
known as the array's cardinality. The cardinality of an array
may vary and is not defined at the time the array is defined.
That is, an instance of an array may always contain fewer
elements than the maximum cardinality allows.
-- Each element may contain a data value that corresponds
to the array's defined data type.
-- Each element has three states: blank (no value assigned
to the element), NULL (NULL assigned to the element), and
containing the valid value (data value assigned to the element).
-- Each element is associated with exactly one ordinal position
in the array. The first array element is found at position 1 (one),
the next at position 2 (two), and so on. Thus, assuming n is the
cardinality of an array, the ordinal position of an array element
is an integer in the range 1 (one) <= element <= n.
-- An array has a maximum cardinality and an actual cardinality.
-- It is an error if one attempts to assign a value to an array
an element whose position is greater than the maximum cardinality of
the array.
-- It is not an error if one attempts to assign values to only
some of an array's elements.
-- Privileges:
-- No special privileges are required to create a table
with the ARRAY data type, or to utilize ARRAY data.
-- Comparison:
-- See WL#2084 Add the ability to compare ARRAY data.
-- Assignment:
-- See WL#2082 Add ARRAY element reference function and
LW #2083 Add ARRAY value constructor function.
Other statements
-- Two other syntax elements must be implemented for
the ARRAY data type to be useful. See WL#2082 for
Array Element Reference syntax and WL#2083 for Array Constructor
syntax.
-- Also related:
-- CARDINALITY(). See WL#2085.
-- Array concatenation. See WL#.
An example
Create a table with the new data type:
CREATE TABLE ArrayTable (array_column INT ARRAY[3]);
Insert data:
INSERT INTO ArrayTable (array_column)
VALUES (ARRAY[10,20,30]);
Retrieve data:
SELECT array_column from ArrayTable
WHERE array_column <> ARRAY[];
-- Returns all cases where array_column is not an empty array
Reserved words
ARRAY, eventually CARDINALITY

AS3: What references do I NOT need to null for GC by reference counting?

I'm writing dispose methods for all my classes so I can make their objects eligible for Garbage Collection by reference counting when I'm done with them. If a class variable is for an int, uint, or Number, I don't have to null it out in my dispose method, correct? What about arrays/vectors that contain those data types? I don't have to do array.length = 0 either, right? But I have to do array = null. What about strings? Are there any other data types that I don't have to null references for?
first of all why you do such thing and when you will call those dispose methods?
In FP there isn't an event when page close. GC is smart enough to deal with almost all problems and you don't have to do manual reference counting.
Check this article:enter link description here
But let's left aside this.
So in AS3 you don't have to nullify any of primitive types( String , Number , int , uint , Boolean ) nor arrays or vectors that holding it( when we speak for GC, If you want to free memory you can clear it and when FP or Air needs a memory the GC will collect it ).
Calling array.length = 0 will truncate the array and the objects will be collected from GC ( if there isn;t another reference to it ).
Strings are immutable so if you have var of type string that holds some string and than assign to it null for example, the original string will remein until end of the program or it will be collected sometime

Sorting by key > 10 integer sequences. with thrust

I want to perform a sort_by_key where I have a single key-sequence
and multiple value sequences.
One usually performs this with
sort_by_key(
key,
key + N,
make_zip_iterator(
make_tuple(x1 , x2 , ...)
)
)
However I want to perform a sort with > 10 sequences each of length N. Thrust does not support
tuples of size >= 10. So is there a way around this ?
Of course one can keep a separate copy of the key vector and perform
sorts on bunches of 10 sequences. But I would like to do everything in a single call.
thrust::tuple is hardcoded to always have 10 elements, so there isn't a direct way to form a zip_iterator from more than ten individual iterators, and therefore no way of sorting more than 10 distinct iterators by key in a single fused operation (and implicitly no way of passing more than 10 iterators into a user functor as well).
If you really can't think of a useful way to combine some of the individual vectors into a single iterator (for example form a vector of tuple values), then one alternative might be to use permutation iterators. If you create an array from a counting iterator and sort that, so something like:
device_vector<int> indices(N);
copy(make_counting_iterator(0), make_counting_iterator(N), indices.begin());
sort_by_key(key, key+N, indices);
indices now holds ordered indices into the vectors you would otherwise have sorted. You can then create a permutation iterator which can be used to "gather" the input data by your key as part of subsequent algorithm calls. You can make as many permutation iterators as needed, and they can be permutations of zip iterators to providing different "views" of the 12 input iterators as you need them in subsequent code.
Actually you may use the simple "scatter" operation. Perform only one "thrust::sort_by_key" operation, then for each data vector apply "thrust::scatter" operation. The values will be distributed to according locations.
thrust::sequence(indices.begin(), indices.end());
thrust::sort_by_key(keyvals.begin(), keyvals.end(), indices.begin());
//now indices keep the locations of the sorted key values
foreach ( ... ) {
thrust::scatter(data.begin(), data.end(), indices.begin(), sorteddata.begin());
}
Gather and scatter operations are quite powerful and opens many opportunities.

What is the definition of a "true" multidimensional array and what languages support them?

Most of the programming books I have ever read, have the following line:
"X language does not support true multidimensional arrays, but you can simulate (approximate) them with arrays of arrays."
Since most of my experience has been with C-based languages, i.e. C++, Java, JavaScript, php, etc., I'm not sure of what a "true" multidimensional array is.
What is the definition of a true multidimensional array and what languages support it?
Also, please show an example of a true multidimensional array in code if possible.
C# supports both true multi-dimensional arrays, and "jagged" arrays (array of arrays) which can be a replacement.
// jagged array
string[][] jagged = new string[12][7];
// multidimensional array
string[,] multi = new string[12,7];
Jagged arrays are generally considered better since they can do everything a multi-dimensional array can do and more. In a jagged array you can have each sub-array be a different size, whereas you cannot do that in a multi-dimensional array. There is even a Code Analysis rule to this effect (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms182277.aspx)
Java uses them too
int[][] a2 = new int[10][5];
Here's an interesting use of it that I've found
String[][] Data;
//Assign the values, do it either dynamically or statically
//For first fow
Data[0][0] = "S"; //lastname
Data[0][1] = "Pradeep"; //firstname
Data[0][2] = "Kolkata"; //location
//Second row
Data[1][0] = "Bhimani"; //lastname
Data[1][1] = "Shabbir"; //firstname
Data[1][2] = "Kolkata"; //location
//Add as many rows you want
//printing
System.out.print("Lastname\tFirstname\tLocation\n");
for(i=0;i<2;i++)
{
for(j=0;j<3;j++)
{
System.out.print(Data[i][j]+"\t");
}
//move to new line
System.out.print("\n");
}
Without going through the reams of literature on the Sun and Microsoft sites, this is what I remember from my C days. Hope this helps.
To make it simple, if we just think in 2 dimensions - Arrays can either be represented as a two-dimensional array and an array of pointers. In code this amounts to
int x[15][20];
int *y[15];
In this example, x[5][6] and b[5][6] are both valid syntactically and end up referring to a single int.
That being said, x is a true two-dimensional array: Once you create it , there will be 300 locations (that can contain int) that have been set aside, and you can use the well known subscript convention to access this rectangular (with 15 rows and 20 columns) array where you can get to x[row,col] by calculating (20 * row) + col.
However in case of y, while the structure is being defined, only 15 pointers are allocated, but not initialized. (Initialization will need to be done explicitly)
There are advantages and disadvantages of this approach (pointer array or "array of arrays" or jagged array as it is called):
Advantage:
The rows of this array can be of different lengths i.e. each element of y does not need to point to a twenty-element ROW; one element may point to a 2 elements, 2nd element may point to 3 elements, and 3rd to zero elements and so on.
Disadvantage:
However given a best case scenario, if each element of y does point to a twenty-element array, then there will be 300 integer locations set aside, plus ten cells for the pointers which is additional.
From a current example perspective, the C sharp examples given above (in one of the previous posts) should suffice.
Common Lisp supports both types of arrays.
The multidimensional array is called Array, while the "one-dimensional" one is called Vector.

Stream filter in cuda

I have an array of values and a linked list of indexes. Now, i only want to keep those values from the array that correspond to the indexes in the LL. is there a standard algorithm to do this. Please give example if possible
So, suppose i have an array 1,2,5,6,7,9
and i have a linked list 2->3
So, i want to keep the values at the index 2 and 3. That is keep 5 and 6.
Thus my function should return 5 and 6
In general, linked list is inherently serial. Having a parallel machine will not speed up the traversal of your list, hence the number of steps of your problem cannot go below O(n), where n is the size of the list.
However, if you have some additional way to access the list you can do something with it.
For example, all elements of the list could be stored in a fixed-size array (although, not necesairly in a consecutive way). List member could be represented in an array using the following struct.
struct ListNode {
bool isValid;
T data;
int next;
}
The value isValid sets if given cell in an array is occupied by a valid list member, or it is just an empty cell.
Now, a parallel algorithm would read all cells at once, check if it represents a valid data, and if so, do something with it.
Second part: Each thread, having a valid index idx of your input array A would have to mark A[idx] not to be deleted. Once we know which elements of A should be removed and which not - a parallel compaction algorithm can be applied.