i always used

while not(doc is nothing)

wend

Mark, Do (While | Until) lets you use Exit Loop or add it later without changing the loop syntax.

I use:

Do While Not doc is Nothing

Loop

Let you exit out of it, but still is clearer to me.

Also check out NotesDocumentCollection.StampAll() and StampAllMulti.

I forgot: above code is pseudocode, not real LotusScript, just meant to generalize and show the concept

Lars - Yeah - will do something like your second code block if I might need to delete the working document... but otherwise I tend to stick to the first code block.

I've developed this style of defensive coding because I get to maintain a  lot of crufty code.  Requirements change, loops must be built, etc... I use this method to avoid unfortunate side-effects and thus also avoid egg on my face caused by cruftiness that was already there.

@Paul you need an Exit Do to exit the loop...

Ok, I give, why use:

Join(doc.GetItemValue("submitter"), "")

instead of

doc.GetItemValue("submitter")(0)

?

@Chris that's why I chipped in, hoping to up the level, and save egg... And because we discussed it, they can even read why!

Hmmm, just was in a bit of code with this in it:

While Not(Doc Is Nothing)
    Call ExportOne (doc, xlWkshtObj)
    Set Doc = collection.GetNextDocument( doc )
Wend

Do you know if there are any hard/fast rules about performance of a While Not vs a Do Until?

OK, so I've just looked up the View article mentioned above at times for While and Do loops.It was May/June 2006 issue, but I reckon the speeds won't have changed much, at least comparatively.

What it says is there's not a lot of difference. In fact, on a looping test just reading from a doccollection, Do was faster over 100K docs, While over 200K docs, and Do faster again over 300K

So, I think it's just whatever you want to use.

Lars, the defensive coding is only needed if you change the doccollection while looping (eg deleting a doc). I find it's needed more often when looping through a view and changing values that then change the position of docs in views

Lars, the defensive coding is only needed if you change the doccollection while looping (eg deleting a doc). I find it's needed more often when looping through a view and changing values that then change the position of docs in views

@DanKing:

Dan, you can use view.AutoUpdate = False that prevents position changes of documents while iterating through a view once it is initialized.

When I think I'll be doing a large number of 'getdocumentbykeys' in a loop, I prefer to do it this way by first rolling through a view and putting everyone in a list. I believe list lookups are quicker than repeated getdocumentbykey calls.

There's some other tricks to speed it up further

Dim empList List As String
Set view = nab.getview("People")
view.autoupdate = False
Set doc = view.getfirstdocument
While Not doc Is Nothing
	empList( doc.Fullname(0) ) = doc.Manager(0)
	Set doc = doc.getnextdocument( doc )
Wend

'now, instead of doing getdocumentbykey on a view, we simply check the list
Set doc = col.GetFirstDocument
While Not(doc Is Nothing)
	doSave = False
	If Iselement( empList( doc.submitter(0) )) Then
		If doc.Manager(0) <> empList( doc.submitter(0)) Then
			Call doc.ReplaceItemValue("manager", empList( doc.submitter(0)))
			doSave = True
		End If
	End If
	If doSave = True Then
		Call doc.Save(True, False, True)
	End If
	
	Set doc = col.GetNextDocument(doc)
Wend

I agree to a point. It's better to cache the manager doc after the first lookup than cache them all at the start of the code. I work in a company of 50,000+ people... imagine what that list would be like. :-)

Dim s As New NotesSession
Dim doc As NotesDocument
Dim nab As New NotesDatabase(s.CurrentDatabase.Server, "names.nsf")
Dim nabview As NotesView
Dim nabcol As NotesDocumentCollection
Dim nabdoc As NotesDocument
Dim empList List As String
	
Set nabview = nab.GetView("people")
	
Set doc = col.GetFirstDocument
Do While Not (doc Is Nothing)
	If Not Iselement(empList(doc.GetItemValue("submitter")(0))) Then
		Set nabcol = nabview.GetAllDocumentsByKey(Join(doc.GetItemValue("submitter"), ""),True)
		Set nabdoc = nabcol.GetFirstDocument
		empList(doc.GetItemValue("submitter")(0)) = nabdoc.GetItemValue("manager")(0)
	End If
		
	Call doc.ReplaceItemValue("manager", empList(doc.GetItemValue("submitter")(0)))
	
	Call doc.Save(True, False, True)
	
	Set doc = col.GetNextDocument(doc)
	
Loop

@tom.  Yeah, but I think you might be surprised...give it a shot next time.  Notes list items are quite flexible.

I've used this method with > 40,000 entries in the initial list.  It's still quite quick compared to doing 40k getdocumentbykey calls:)

@Darren

Considering most of us recommended Do While Not (doc Is Nothing)... I think it's readable enough.

In fact... I might use it more considering it irritates the philosophical developer. :-)

Agree lists are amazing.  I usually builds a class managing a list of objects (wrap the list in a class for easy management and passing around).

You MUST remember to build your own objects.  There are several warnings findable in the IBM technotes of keeping large numbers of product objects (a.k.a. the Notes... class objects) in memory.  Notes will keep thousands or millions of custom objects in a list and perform very well. But keep a couple of thousand NotesDocument handy and things slow to a crawl or crash.  That's just because the objects do a lot for us.  Remember we are priviliged to be building on the shoulders of giants in Domino-land.

Name:Ethann CastellWebsite:http://www.caliton.comComment I authored the article in the View and I'd recommend reading it to everyone ;-)

Yes, GetNthDocument is evil! You might increase performance by using a For loop since you already know the number of documents in the view, but still using getNextDocument.

Name:Lars Berntrop-BosWebsite:http://www.bleedyellow.comComment

While I'd love to read that article, it's currently out of reach for me.  I have to rely on publicly available sources for budgetary reasons.

Name:Dan SicklesComment

Lotusscript lists are amazing and what's also amazing is that in every other programming language they are called Maps or Dictionaries (and even associative arrays).

Most programming languages have lists AND  maps/dictionaries. I would really liked to have had a real list type in Lotusscript all these years (I started  writing LS with R4 alpha) in addition to the map. Sometimes you just need a list of things. No key. No index. Just a list, like a python list or a Java Array List. A Set or Tuple would have been useful too. In a scripting language, these data structures should all be first class types, like the Lotusscript map, I mean list.

But a generic (in the value) map called a list? Hey, that's worked out pretty well. Was this about lists ;-?

Name:Shane CurcuruWebsite:http://shane.curcuru.name/blog/Comment Lists are the best things since they upgraded some of the @function behavior in R3.  I'm quite happy to use them as just a List of blank strings, when all I need is a Set.

Love the variation of how people do their loops; it would be an interesting survey to see the combinations of Do/While/Until/Not/Nothing.  I definitely agree on thinking about future maintenance, and always using Exit Loop rather than Goto.

And yes, any calls to getNthDocument - unless they're truly only interested in that one Nth document - are evil.

Love the Captcha! Name:Frank DroegeWebsite:http://www.villa-straylight.comComment

I was always wondering what lists were for - the description in Designer help is somewhat clumsy. Then I found out that they're basically hash tables - and I use these a lot in Java coding. Doh. How did I ever code LS without lists? ;-)

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