Search
Ploticus >
Scripts >
Comma-delimited lists
A comma-delimited list (or "list" for short) is a list of items, delimited with commas
like this: Harry,Ron,Hermione
Lists are useful in storing sets or groups. They can serve some of the same purposes
that arrays serve in other languages. In databases, lists can conveniently provide a degree of
vectorization without requiring a separate table and joins.
Lists can be a powerful approach-- the infamous programming language LISP made great use of lists.
There are a number of
functions for working with lists.
Lists can be used...
as sets of items.. members can be added or removed from lists.
to control iteration (#for loops)
Since the total length of a comma-delimited list is limited to about 250 characters,
lists are most suitable where individual values are known to be small in size
(such as controlled-vocabulary tags or integer id numbers) and where it is known that
there will not be a huge number of choices.
List members can not contain embedded commas, and there is no provision for escaping a comma.
List members can contain embedded spaces in some situations.
