View Poll Results: What will be the output of "MsgBox 0, MyU.st" ?

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Thread: Guess the output (Union)

  1. #1
    thinBasic author ErosOlmi's Avatar
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    Guess the output (Union)

    Giving the following UNION and relative variable ...

    Union MyUnion
      b(12)   As Byte
      st      As String * 12
    End Union
    
    Dim MyU As MyUnion
    
    Giving one of the following two methods to fill the union array b ...

    '---Method 1 to fill UDT array
      With MyU
        .b( 1) = 116
        .b( 2) = 104
        .b( 3) = 105
        .b( 4) = 110
        .b( 5) = 66
        .b( 6) = 97
        .b( 7) = 115
        .b( 8) = 105
        .b( 9) = 99
        .b(10) = 32
        .b(11) = 33
      End With
    
    '---Method 2 to fill UDT array
      With MyU
        .b( 1) = 116, 104, 105, 110, 66, 97, 115, 105, 99, 32, 33
      End With
    
    What will be the output of:
    MsgBox 0, MyU.st
    
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  2. #2
    Super Moderator Petr Schreiber's Avatar
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    Hehe,

    since PB/DOS I have the ASCII table in my head, so I am quite sure the result will be "thinBASIC !"

    UNIONs are cool feature when porting from other languages, but in practice I use more the DIM .. AT syntax to achieve same result in most projects.

    I think in this special case it is enough to have the array dimensioned to 11 elements and the string to 11 characters.

    Why?

    Because STRING * n is not null terminated, which is the difference compared to ASCIIZ * n.

    So the code could be in theory this (added one method for array fill):
    Union MyUnion
      b(11)   As Byte
      st      As String * 11
    End Union
     
    Dim MyU As MyUnion
    
    '---Method 1 to fill UDT array
      With MyU
        .b( 1) = 116
        .b( 2) = 104
        .b( 3) = 105
        .b( 4) = 110
        .b( 5) = 66
        .b( 6) = 97
        .b( 7) = 115
        .b( 8) = 105
        .b( 9) = 99
        .b(10) = 32
        .b(11) = 33
      End With
     
    '---Method 2 to fill UDT array    
      With MyU
        .b( 1) = 116, 104, 105, 110, 66, 97, 115, 105, 99, 32, 33
      End With
      
    '---Method 3 to fill UDT array  
      MyU.b( 1) = 116, 104, 105, 110, 66, 97, 115, 105, 99, 32, 33  
      
    MsgBox 0, MyU.st
    

    Petr
    Last edited by Petr Schreiber; 08-02-2013 at 22:55.
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  3. #3
    thinBasic MVPs
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    I always wanted to know what that "Union" does.

    Now I think I've learned from this thread that st and b of myU refer to the same adress in memory and both display the same values stored as different types. Just for interest: I could replace some "cast"-Methods (cstr, cbyte etc.) by using a Union, for example I could use
    Union someUnion
        l as long
        b(4) as Byte
    End Union
    
    dim myU as someUnion
    myU.l = 123456
    
    ' now the b()-bytes show the value 123456 split up to &H00, &H01, &HE2 and &H40 ? Cool.
    I think there are missing some Forum-sections as beta-testing and support

  4. #4
    thinBasic author ErosOlmi's Avatar
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    @Petr: right you are.
    ASCIIZ * n needs 12 bytes (due to NULL at the end) while for STRING * n 11 bytes are enough.


    @ReneMiner
    Quote Originally Posted by ReneMiner View Post
    ... st and b of myU refer to the same address in memory and both display the same values stored as different types.
    Exactly: every element into an UNION shares the same memory area with all the other elements.
    The total memory area occupied by an UNION is the size of the longest element present into the UNION.

    Here a little more interesting UNION example
    Uses "console"
    
    
    '---3 different structures each of which representing a thing: dog, orange, coin
      Type Dog
          lBreed     As Long
          lAge       As Byte
          sName      As String * 16
      End Type
       
      Type Orange
          lSize      As Byte
      End Type
       
      Type Coin
          lCountry   As Long
      End Type
    
    
    '---Put all the things together into an union so they all share the same memory area
      Union ThingProperties
          tDog      As Dog
          tOrange   As Orange
          tCoin     As Coin
      End Union   
    
    
    '---Now creates a general purpose thing able to represent all the possible things
      Type Thing
          lThingType     As Long
          uThingProp     As ThingProperties
      End Type
    
    
    '---Possible things type
      %ORANGE = 1
      %COIN   = 2
      %DOG    = 3
    
    
    '---Allocate few things
      Dim tThing(3)     As Thing
      Dim lCurrentThing As Long
    
    
    '---Fill things with a thing type and thing data
      tThing(1).lThingType                = %ORANGE
      tThing(1).uThingProp.tOrange.lSize  = 25
    
    
      tThing(2).lThingType                = %COIN
      tThing(2).uThingProp.tCoin.lCountry = 1234
    
    
      tThing(3).lThingType                = %DOG
      tThing(3).uThingProp.tDog.sName     = "FUFFY"
      
    '---Show something a bout the things
      For lCurrentThing = 1 To UBound(tThing)
        Print "Thing is ... "
        Select Case tThing(lCurrentThing).lThingType
          Case %ORANGE
            PrintL "an Orange of size"    , tThing(lCurrentThing).uThingProp.tOrange.lSize
          Case %COIN
            PrintL "a Coin by country"    , tThing(lCurrentThing).uThingProp.tCoin.lCountry
          Case %DOG
            PrintL "a Dog whose name is"  , tThing(lCurrentThing).uThingProp.tDog.sName
        End Select
      Next
    
    
    WaitKey
    
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