Re: How to use associative arrays in Ada 2005?

["snoopysalive" <matthias.kistler@gmx.de>]

Hi!

First, I want to thank all of you for your examples and ideas. But they
don't work, sorry! So, I took your ideas and am trying to implement an
own procedure creating "hashes" like I need them.

The problem is that I need maps of maps of maps ... It's logical that a
container is able to get another container as element and it's no
problem to instanciate these containers and then put them one into the
other.
  In my example code I tried to create a table of family names, names
and their ages. Let's make it a little more complex and create another
first key called "nation":

Nation    | Family Name   |  Name               | Age*
----------|---------------|---------------------|------
German    | Goethe        | Johann Wolfgang     | 60
          |               | Catharina Elisabeth | 80
          |               | Johann Caspar       | 90
          | Hesse         | Hermann             | 51
Japanese  | Kusanagi      | Motoko              | 29
American  | Ford          | Henry               | 45
          |               | Harrison            | 41
Finnish   | Torvalds      | Linus               | 35
----------|---------------|----------------------------
* All ages are fictional because I don't know the real
  ages of these persons or they are dead or fictional

The problem: Every single key needs a separate container map. We need 1
first-level, 4 second-level and 5 third-level key maps.

First-level  = 1x map of string-map
Second-level = 4x map of string-map
Third-level  = 5x map of string-integer

It would be necessary to create every single map and to put them one
into the other all manually for transforming the given table into a
"hash". That's easy and possible but not flexible. When posting the
code of my impossible programme, I had the idea of "anonymous"
container maps contained in maps. Because of this I wrote
"Ages.Insert("family name", Insert("name", 23));".

Sadly, Matt's solution didn't work. The statement "Ages.Insert ("family
name", C, B);" brought a compilation error: "no selector 'Insert' for
private type "Ada.Containers.Indefinite_Hashed_Maps.Map" from instance
at line 16". I found out that no procedure "Insert(String, Cursor,
Boolean)" exists. But it exists a procedure "Insert(String,
Element_Type, Cursor, Boolean)".
  So, I'm trying to combine Matt's and Georg's ideas now. I'll write a
line, if I'd be successfull. Otherwise, I'll also write a line. ;-)

Once more: Thank you all. I'm commencing to have an idea of Ada-syntax
and philosphy and that's more than my professors at universitiy could
give me.

Greetings,
Matthias