<html>
<head>
<!-- This file has been generated by unroff 1.0, 03/11/09 12:56:13. -->
<!-- Do not edit! -->
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
A:link{text-decoration:none}
A:visited{text-decoration:none}
A:active{text-decoration:none}
OL,UL,P,BODY,TD,TR,TH,FORM { font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;; font-size:small; color: #333333; }
H1 { font-size: x-large; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; }
H2 { font-size: large; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; }
H3 { font-size: medium; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; }
H4 { font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; }
-->
</STYLE>
<title>ploticus: lists</title>
<body bgcolor=D0D0EE vlink=0000FF>
<br>
<br>
<center>
<table cellpadding=2 bgcolor=FFFFFF width=550><tr>
<td>
<table cellpadding=2 width=550><tr>
<td><br><h2>lists</h2></td>
<td align=right>
<small>
<a href="../doc/welcome.html"><img src="../doc/ploticus.gif" border=0></a><br>
Version 2.41 Mar2009
<td></tr></table>
</td></tr>
<td>
<br>
<br>
<title>Manual page for lists(PL)</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Comma-delimited lists</h2>
A comma-delimited list (or "list" for short) is a list of items, delimited with commas
like this: <tt>Harry,Ron,Hermione</tt>
<p>
Lists are useful in storing sets or groups. They can serve some of the same purposes
that arrays serve in other languages. In databases, lists can conveniently provide a degree of
vectorization without requiring a separate table and joins.
Lists can be a powerful approach-- the infamous programming language LISP made great use of lists.<tt> </tt>
<p>
There are a number of
<a href="functions.html#commalists">
functions for working with lists.<tt> </tt>
</a>
<p>
Lists can be used...<tt> </tt>
<ul>
<li>
as sets of items.. members can be added or removed from lists.<tt> </tt>
<li>
to control iteration (#for loops)
</ul>
<p>
Since the total length of a comma-delimited list is limited to about 250 characters,
lists are most suitable where individual values are known to be small in size
(such as controlled-vocabulary tags or integer id numbers) and where it is known that
there will not be a huge number of choices.
List members can not contain embedded commas, and there is no provision for escaping a comma.<tt> </tt>
List members can contain embedded spaces in some situations.<tt> </tt>
<br>
<br>
</td></tr>
<td align=right>
<a href="../doc/welcome.html">
<img src="../doc/ploticus.gif" border=0></a><br><small>data display engine <br>
<a href="../doc/Copyright.html">Copyright Steve Grubb</a>
<br>
<br>
<center>
<img src="../gallery/all.gif">
</center>
</td></tr>
</table>
<br>
<center>
<table><tr><td>
Ploticus is hosted at http://ploticus.sourceforge.net</td><td> </td><td>
<a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ploticus"><img src="http://sflogo.sourceforge.net/sflogo.php?group_id=38453&type=12"
width="120" height="30" border="0"
alt="Get ploticus data display engine at SourceForge.net. Fast, secure and Free Open Source software downloads" /></a>
</td></tr></table>
</center>
<p><hr>
Markup created by <em>unroff</em> 1.0, <tt> </tt> <tt> </tt>March 11, 2009.
</body>
</html>
distrib
>
Mandriva
>
2010.0
>
i586
>
media
>
contrib-release
>
by-pkgid
>
ed05dc5f357c49fdded780f52b150dce
>
files
>
29
