// Slices are an important data type in Scilab, giving
// a more powerful interface to sequences than arrays.

// Unlike arrays, slices in Scilab are just references to parts of arrays.
// They don't have a fixed size.

// Create an empty array
s = [];
disp("uninit:", s, "is_empty:", isempty(s), "length:", length(s));

// To create an array with non-zero length, use zeros or ones function
s = zeros(1, 3);
disp("emp:", s, "length:", length(s));

// We can set and get just like with arrays.
s(1) = "a";
s(2) = "b";
s(3) = "c";
disp("set:", s);
disp("get:", s(3));

// length returns the length of the array as expected.
disp("len:", length(s));

// In addition to these basic operations, we can use concatenation
// to add elements to the array.
s = [s, "d"];
s = [s, "e", "f"];
disp("concat:", s);

// We can also copy arrays
c = s;
disp("cpy:", c);

// Slices support a "slice" operator with the syntax
// slice(start:end). For example, this gets elements 2 to 4.
l = s(2:4);
disp("sl1:", l);

// This slices up to (but excluding) the 5th element.
l = s(1:4);
disp("sl2:", l);

// And this slices from the 3rd element to the end.
l = s(3:$);
disp("sl3:", l);

// We can declare and initialize a variable for array
// in a single line as well.
t = ["g", "h", "i"];
disp("dcl:", t);

// Scilab doesn't have a built-in function to compare arrays,
// but we can create one
function res = array_equal(a, b)
    res = and(a == b) && length(a) == length(b);
endfunction

t2 = ["g", "h", "i"];
if array_equal(t, t2) then
    disp("t == t2");
end

// Arrays can be composed into multi-dimensional data
// structures. The length of the inner arrays can
// vary, unlike with multi-dimensional arrays.
twoD = list();
for i = 1:3
    innerLen = i;
    inner = zeros(1, innerLen);
    for j = 1:innerLen
        inner(j) = i + j - 1;
    end
    twoD(i) = inner;
end
disp("2d: ", twoD);