US 5,687,377 A · Method for storing variables in a programming language

Abstract

A system for storing array variables in a programming language, wherein all subscripts are converted to strings, and stored along with the name of the array, allowing strings to be used as subscripts. When the array subscript is another variable, the contents of the subscript variable are converted to a string which is stored along with the array name. Memory is allocated when data is stored in the variable, allowing sparse arrays. A record from a file can be stored with each field of the record stored as an element of an array, indexed by the field name. The type of the data stored in a variable is stored with the data, thus the type can be changed dynamically, and each array element can have a different data type. The size of each dimension of the array can be changed dynamically, and the number of dimensions can be increased dynamically.

Claims19

Dependent claims

A method for storing array variable names and data for the array variable names within a programming language, the method comprising:

(a) separating a base name and a subscript of each variable name;
(b) when the subscript comprises a number, converting the number to a string of characters representing the number;
(c) storing the base name and the subscript in a list of variable names;
(d) allocating a memory area and connecting the base name and the subscript to the memory area;
and
(e) storing data for the variable in the memory area;
wherein memory is allocated only when data is stored into a variable.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method for storing variables in a programming language

Life of this patent

Method for storing variables in a programming language

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims19