The Dictionary Object
The Dictionary object is used to store information in name/value pairs (referred to as key and item). The Dictionary object might seem similar to Arrays, however, the Dictionary object is a more desirable solution to manipulate related data.
Comparing Dictionaries and Arrays:
* Keys are used to identify the items in a Dictionary object
* You do not have to call ReDim to change the size of the Dictionary object
* When deleting an item from a Dictionary, the remaining items will automatically shift up
* Dictionaries cannot be multidimensional, Arrays can
* Dictionaries have more built-in functions than Arrays
* Dictionaries work better than arrays on accessing random elements frequently
* Dictionaries work better than arrays on locating items by their content
The following example creates a Dictionary object, adds some key/item pairs to it, and retrieves the item value for the key gr:
<%
Dim d
Set d=Server.CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
d.Add "re","Red"
d.Add "gr","Green"
d.Add "bl","Blue"
d.Add "pi","Pink"
Response.Write("The value of key gr is: " & d.Item("gr"))
%>
Output:
The value of key gr is: Green
