Can I name a variable using the contents of another variable and if so how do I do it?

Question

User-158480776 posted

Environment: Windows 8; WebMatrix; Visual Basic

1. Can I name a variable using the contents of another variable and if so how do I do it?

To use an example;

                     i.      A database field contains the value "UK1"

                   ii.      I have recovered that value to a variable called "Publisher_Code"

                  iii.      Another field in the database contains the value 6

                iv.      I have recovered that value to a variable called "Series_Count"

                  v.      I now want to create a VB array variable called and sized somewhat like this -

Dim Series_Codes_[the contents of Publisher_Code](Series_Count) As Array

   Bottom line - I don't know the syntax for invoking the contents of Publisher_Code while I'm declaring the variable.

I have seen a similar query to this elsewhere and the reply included some references to using objects and the following C# code snippet, but I couldn't work out how to adapt that to VB and to my specific example above,

var obj = { someprop:"someval", otherprop:… },
    name = "someprop";
obj[name]; // "someval"

The same post also included this line -

"You can't really, variable names (identifiers) are static (as long as you don't use eval) in a scope."

Eval doesn't seem to be a VB statement, so though I would be willing to use something that 'evaluates' the dim statement I again do not know how to effect such 'evaluation'.

With hopes for a positive answer and thanks in anticipation

Best regards

Philip, Perth, Western Australia

Answer 1

User-489377026 posted

Hi,

Dim Series_Codes_[the contents of Publisher_Code](Series_Count) As Array

You can't do this, declare a variable, you need specify its name, but you can use Dictionary type like below:

Dim vartable = New Dictionary(Of String, String)()
Dim temp As String = "test3"
vartable("test1") = "test1"
vartable("test2") = "test2"
vartable(temp) = "tttttttt"

var obj = { someprop:"someval", otherprop:… }, 
    name = "someprop"; 
obj[name]; // "someval"

That's javascript way, so you may try Dictionary type.

Best Regards

Answer 2

User-158480776 posted

Thank you