FOREACH

Iterate sequentially through elements in a collection

FOREACH loop_var IN collection [AS type]
  <iteration processing>
  .
  .
  .

Arguments

loop_var

A loop record or variable whose value is set to each element in sequence as FOREACH iterates through them.

collection

One of the following:

A dynamic system array of rank 1 (for example, [#]@myclass)
A real Synergy array of rank 1 (for example, [10]a5)
The System.Collections.ArrayList class or a descendant
The Synergex.SynergyDE.Collections.ArrayList class or a descendant
The Synergex.SynergyDE.Select.Select class
A class generated by the gennet40 utility that inherits from the DotNetObject class and can be converted to IEnumerable (a .NET Framework interface that implements collection-like behavior) (traditional Synergy only)

In Synergy .NET, collection is anything that implements IEnumerable or IEnumerable<T>, and all elements of the collection must be the same data type.

type

(optional) The data type of the elements in the collection, which you’ll need to specify if the loop_var type doesn’t match the collection type.

Discussion

When the FOREACH statement is executed, it iterates sequentially through all elements in the collection, setting loop_var to each element in turn. If the collection is a dynamic array, the loop variable’s type must match or be an ancestor of the element type of that array; otherwise, a “Type mismatch” error (TYPMISMCH) will occur.

The loop variable is a copy of the processed element in collection, so it is like an assignment statement. This means that changes to members of loop_var are not reflected back in the original collection. As a result of the implied assignment, FOREACH is less efficient than a FOR loop.

You cannot add an element to the collection, remove an element from the collection, or set a collection item to another handle while the FOREACH statement is being executed. If any of these changes occur, the runtime will report an “Invalid operation: Collection was modified” error ($ERR_INVOPER).

A call to a label in a higher scope is not allowed in the iteration processing section of a FOREACH statement whose loop variable is an object.

If the collection is a Synergex.SynergyDE.Collections.ArrayList, a System.Collections.ArrayList, or a descendent of one of these classes and the items of the collection cannot be cast to the type of the loop variable, the runtime will report an “Incompatible classes” error ($ERR_INCPTCLS).

If the collection is a Synergex.SynergyDE.Select.Select class, the specified record is always retrieved.

The loop variable must be the same type as the elements in the collection, or an “Invalid Cast” exception will occur. You can use the “AS type” syntax to accommodate cases in which the loop variable is different from the collection type and avoid generating an error. For example, if you had the following FOREACH statement

foreach mydecimalvar in arraylist

and you declare

ArrayList.Add(myi4var)

the decimal variable is not an Int and an error would occur. However, if your FOREACH statement were as follows, no error would occur:

foreach mydecimalvar in arraylist as @int

Similarly, if the collection contains elements that are type structfield and the loop variable is type a, your FOREACH statement might look like this:

foreach avar in arraylist as @structure_name

FOREACH also won’t work with a mixed-type array list, so make sure you either cast as you add items to the array list or use “AS type” in Synergy .NET. In traditional Synergy, FOREACH does work with mixed-type array lists, so you can use “AS type” to move code designed for traditional Synergy to Synergy .NET.

A non-object cannot be used as the loop variable if the IN variable is a collection, unless “AS type” is used in Synergy .NET to force a possible conversion.

The enumerator created implicitly by the FOREACH statement is destroyed (disposed in .NET) at the end of the loop. In .NET, if the collection implements the dispose pattern and is a new instantiation, the temporary object created by the new instantiation has its Dispose method called automatically at the end of the loop.

Beware, in .NET, when instantiating a Select object using a From object handle:

foreach rec in new Select(frmobj, whereobj)

The Select object will be disposed at the end of the loop along with the From object referenced by frmobj. Subsequent use of frmobj unless reinstantiated will result in a System.ObjectDisposedException. Instead, instantiate the From object from within the FOREACH:

foreach rec in new Select(new From(file, rec), whereobj)

Also, moving the instantiation of the Select outside the FOREACH will turn off the automatic disposal, allowing you to dispose at the appropriate time.

Examples

The example below iterates through the alist collection for every customer.

import System.Collections

namespace ns1
    class customer
      public name, string
      public method customer
        parm1, string
      proc
          name = parm1
      endmethod
    endclass
endnamespace
main 
record
    alist       ,@ArrayList
    c1          ,@customer
proc
    alist = new ArrayList()
    alist.Add(new customer("joe"))
    alist.Add(new customer("fred"))
    alist.Add(new customer("fran"))
    open(2, o, "tt:")
    foreach c1 in alist
    begin
      writes(2, c1.name)
    end
    close(2)
end