On Mar 20, 2015 2:59 PM, "Alex Bowers" <bowersb...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > So $dictionary['elephant':'snake'] returns all elements with keys which > > sort lexically between 'elephant' and 'snake', regardless of whether the > > array is sorted. > > > Makes sense to me. > > Alternatively, a key-based slice could look up the position in the array of > > the two keys, and then perform a positional slice between those positions, > > i.e. $array[$a:$b] == $array[ @ key_position($array, $a) : > > key_position($array, $b) ]. I'm not sure that's particularly intuitive or > > useful, but again, it has no problem with string keys. > > > I'd say no to that, since it is not an obvious use case, since if you are > defining associated arrays, going for the indexes of those fields feels > strange; since one of the major benefits to associated keys is that the > order doesn't matter anymore. Having this one feature order dependant > whilst using the associated keys isn't correct in my view. > > On 20 March 2015 at 14:41, Rowan Collins <rowan.coll...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Alex Bowers wrote on 20/03/2015 13:40: > > > >> Still not sure how we can implement a range of strings. But since thats > >> for a different feature, I'll leave that issue for now. > >> > > > > I can't resist a quick answer: if you can define a key-based slice at all, > > you can define it for both integer and string keys. Bear in mind the a:b > > here isn't a range, it's just a pair of values specifying which items to > > include in the slice. > > > > If the definition of a key-based slice is "all elements whose key > > satisfies $key >= $a && $key <= $b", then you're just doing comparisons > > between strings, which are defined as lexical order. So > > $dictionary['elephant':'snake'] returns all elements with keys which sort > > lexically between 'elephant' and 'snake', regardless of whether the array > > is sorted. > > > > Alternatively, a key-based slice could look up the position in the array > > of the two keys, and then perform a positional slice between those > > positions, i.e. $array[$a:$b] == $array[ @ key_position($array, $a) : > > key_position($array, $b) ]. I'm not sure that's particularly intuitive or > > useful, but again, it has no problem with string keys. > > > > Regards, > > -- > > Rowan Collins > > [IMSoP] > >
IMHO, stick to offsets in the first instance, this is a slice notation, first order of business is to make it behave like array_slice (+on strings). Assoc key based slicing feels pretty wrong to me at this point.
