How to Determine If All Elements in an Array Are Empty

 Last reviewed: April 29, 1996
Article ID: Q103088
The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, version 3.0
  • Microsoft FoxPro for MS-DOS, versions 2.0, 2.5, and 2.5a
  • Microsoft FoxPro for Windows, versions 2.5 and 2.5a

SUMMARY

To determine if an entire array is empty, you can use the function shown below.

NOTE: There isn't a FoxPro function written for this purpose. The EMPTY() function comes close, but it will not return a correct answer if an array element that is not the first element in the array is populated with data.

MORE INFORMATION

The following function will return a logical false if any element in the entire array is populated with anything other than .F.: 

   FUNCTION aempty
   PARAMETERS aname
   FOR pass = 1 to ALEN(aname) STEP 1
   retval = EMPTY(aname(pass))
   IF retval
      LOOP
   ELSE
       RETURN retval
   ENDIF
   ENDFOR
This function takes a single parameter <arrayname>. The syntax to call this function is as follows: 

   SET UDFPARMS TO REFERENCE
   DIMENSION x(10)
   x(5) = "junk"
   ? aempty(x)
NOTE: The elements in any array will initially be false (.F.) by default. Therefore, any element with a logical value of .F. is considered empty.

Additional reference words: VFoxWin 3.00 FoxDos FoxWin 2.50 2.00 2.50a
KBCategory: kbprg kbcode
KBSubcategory: FxprgGeneral

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Last reviewed: April 29, 1996
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