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D.4  Using Clusters as a programming dictionary
Many programming languages have a specialized data structure that acts as a Data Dictionary. With sheerpower, clusters can be used for this purpose.

The code below demonstrates using a Sherpower cluster as a Data Dictionary.

// An example of using a cluster as a simple Key/Value pair Data Dictionary // Note: All cluster variables can be used as keys cluster capitals: country$, city$ add cluster capitals capitals->country$ = 'USA' capitals->city$ = 'Washington, D.C.' add cluster capitals: capitals->country$ = 'Germany', capitals->city$ = 'Berlin' add cluster capitals: capitals->country$ = 'China', capitals->city$ = 'Beijing' row = findrow(capitals->country$, 'Germany') if row = 0 then print 'Unknown' else print capitals->city$ end if row = findrow(capitals->city$, 'Beijing') if row = 0 then print 'Unknown' else print capitals->country$ end if

Program Explanation:

1. Comments:

The comments explain the purpose of the program and highlight that any variable within a cluster can be used as a key to look up values.

2. Cluster Definition:

A cluster named capitals is defined to store country names and their corresponding capital cities. The fields in the cluster are country$ and city$.

3. Adding Data:

The program adds entries to the capitals cluster:

  • USA with the capital Washington, D.C.
  • Germany with the capital Berlin
  • China with the capital Beijing

4. Searching by Key:

The program searches the capitals cluster for the row where the country$ field matches Germany. If found, it prints the corresponding capital city.

5. Searching by Value:

The program then searches the capitals cluster for the row where the city$ field matches Beijing. If found, it prints the corresponding country name.

Summary:

This program demonstrates how to use a sheerpower cluster as a simple Key/Value data dictionary, where you can store and retrieve pairs of country names and their capital cities.

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