Title here
Summary here
Structs in Wolfram Language
Structs
Wolfram Language’s Association is similar to a struct in other programming languages. It is a collection of fields and can be used to group data together.
Creating a person Association with name and age fields
person = <|"name" -> "name", "age" -> 0|>;Constructing a new person Association with the given name
newPerson[name_] := Module[{p},
p = <|"name" -> name, "age" -> 42|>;
p
];Wolfram Language automatically manages memory and garbage collection, so local variables will be maintained as long as there are references to them.
Main function to demonstrate usage
main[] := Module[{person1, person2, person3, personPtr, personJon, s, sp, dog},
(* This syntax creates a new Association. *)
Print[<|"name" -> "Bob", "age" -> 20|>];
(* You can name the fields when initializing an Association. *)
Print[<|"name" -> "Alice", "age" -> 30|>];
(* Omitted fields will be zero-valued (which is interpreted as 0 for integers). *)
Print[<|"name" -> "Fred"|>];
(* An Association with a pointer is just another reference. *)
personPtr = <|"name" -> "Ann", "age" -> 40|>;
Print[personPtr];
(* Encapsulating new struct creation in constructor functions *)
personJon = newPerson["Jon"];
Print[personJon];
(* Access Association fields with a key. *)
s = <|"name" -> "Sean", "age" -> 50|>;
Print[s["name"]];
(* You can also use keys with Association references. *)
sp = s;
Print[sp["age"]];
(* Associations are mutable. *)
sp["age"] = 51;
Print[sp["age"]];
(* If a struct type is only used for a single value, you don’t have to give it a name. The value can have an anonymous struct type. This technique is commonly used for table-driven tests. *)
dog = <|"name" -> "Rex", "isGood" -> True|>;
Print[dog];
];
main[];Output
To run the program, load the code in a Wolfram Language environment and execute it.
main[]Output:
<|name -> Bob, age -> 20|>
<|name -> Alice, age -> 30|>
<|name -> Fred, age -> 0|>
<|name -> Ann, age -> 40|>
<|name -> Jon, age -> 42|>
Sean
50
51
<|name -> Rex, isGood -> True|>This concludes the example of using Associations (similar to structs) in Wolfram Language to manage and manipulate grouped data.