Populating VBscript array with modern array - vbscript

Question

Arrays tend to look like this in languages such as JavaScript and Python:
['Foo', 'Bar']
But in classic ASP they look like this:
Array("foo", "bar")
Is there an easy way to store a modern array in a VBScript array?
As an example of the problem this will give a type mismatch:
Dim arrayString
arrayString = "['Foo', 'Bar']"
Dim myArray()
myArray = array(arrayString)
If someone has built a library to do this conversion that would be most helpful, otherwise I'm guessing we need to do something cumbersome with split?

Answer 1

Are you aware that ASP classic also supports JScript (ECMAScript Version 3)? For instance, we can put function wrappers on JSON parsing and stringify functions and JScript arrays as follows:
<%# Language= "Javascript" %>
<%
//json2-min.js
if(typeof JSON!=="object"){JSON={}}(function(){"use strict";function f(e){return e<10?"0"+e:e}function quote(e){escapable.lastIndex=0;return escapable.test(e)?'"'+e.replace(escapable,function(e){var t=meta[e];return typeof t==="string"?t:"\\u"+("0000"+e.charCodeAt(0).toString(16)).slice(-4)})+'"':'"'+e+'"'}function str(e,t){var n,r,i,s,o=gap,u,a=t[e];if(a&&typeof a==="object"&&typeof a.toJSON==="function"){a=a.toJSON(e)}if(typeof rep==="function"){a=rep.call(t,e,a)}switch(typeof a){case"string":return quote(a);case"number":return isFinite(a)?String(a):"null";case"boolean":case"null":return String(a);case"object":if(!a){return"null"}gap+=indent;u=[];if(Object.prototype.toString.apply(a)==="[object Array]"){s=a.length;for(n=0;n<s;n+=1){u[n]=str(n,a)||"null"}i=u.length===0?"[]":gap?"[\n"+gap+u.join(",\n"+gap)+"\n"+o+"]":"["+u.join(",")+"]";gap=o;return i}if(rep&&typeof rep==="object"){s=rep.length;for(n=0;n<s;n+=1){if(typeof rep[n]==="string"){r=rep[n];i=str(r,a);if(i){u.push(quote(r)+(gap?": ":":")+i)}}}}else{for(r in a){if(Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(a,r)){i=str(r,a);if(i){u.push(quote(r)+(gap?": ":":")+i)}}}}i=u.length===0?"{}":gap?"{\n"+gap+u.join(",\n"+gap)+"\n"+o+"}":"{"+u.join(",")+"}";gap=o;return i}}if(typeof Date.prototype.toJSON!=="function"){Date.prototype.toJSON=function(){return isFinite(this.valueOf())?this.getUTCFullYear()+"-"+f(this.getUTCMonth()+1)+"-"+f(this.getUTCDate())+"T"+f(this.getUTCHours())+":"+f(this.getUTCMinutes())+":"+f(this.getUTCSeconds())+"Z":null};String.prototype.toJSON=Number.prototype.toJSON=Boolean.prototype.toJSON=function(){return this.valueOf()}}var cx,escapable,gap,indent,meta,rep;if(typeof JSON.stringify!=="function"){escapable=/[\\\"\x00-\x1f\x7f-\x9f\u00ad\u0600-\u0604\u070f\u17b4\u17b5\u200c-\u200f\u2028-\u202f\u2060-\u206f\ufeff\ufff0-\uffff]/g;meta={"\b":"\\b"," ":"\\t","\n":"\\n","\f":"\\f","\r":"\\r",'"':'\\"',"\\":"\\\\"};JSON.stringify=function(e,t,n){var r;gap="";indent="";if(typeof n==="number"){for(r=0;r<n;r+=1){indent+=" "}}else if(typeof n==="string"){indent=n}rep=t;if(t&&typeof t!=="function"&&(typeof t!=="object"||typeof t.length!=="number")){throw new Error("JSON.stringify")}return str("",{"":e})}}if(typeof JSON.parse!=="function"){cx=/[\u0000\u00ad\u0600-\u0604\u070f\u17b4\u17b5\u200c-\u200f\u2028-\u202f\u2060-\u206f\ufeff\ufff0-\uffff]/g;JSON.parse=function(text,reviver){function walk(e,t){var n,r,i=e[t];if(i&&typeof i==="object"){for(n in i){if(Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(i,n)){r=walk(i,n);if(r!==undefined){i[n]=r}else{delete i[n]}}}}return reviver.call(e,t,i)}var j;text=String(text);cx.lastIndex=0;if(cx.test(text)){text=text.replace(cx,function(e){return"\\u"+("0000"+e.charCodeAt(0).toString(16)).slice(-4)})}if(/^[\],:{}\s]*$/.test(text.replace(/\\(?:["\\\/bfnrt]|u[0-9a-fA-F]{4})/g,"#").replace(/"[^"\\\n\r]*"|true|false|null|-?\d+(?:\.\d*)?(?:[eE][+\-]?\d+)?/g,"]").replace(/(?:^|:|,)(?:\s*\[)+/g,""))){j=eval("("+text+")");return typeof reviver==="function"?walk({"":j},""):j}throw new SyntaxError("JSON.parse")}}})()
function jsonParse(str) { return JSON.parse(str); }
function jsonStringify(obj) { return JSON.stringify(obj); }
function jsArray() { return []; }
function jsArrayPush(a,v) { a.push(v); }
%>
Then, in your VBScript code you can make use of the JScript array, e.g.
<%# Language= "VBscript" %>
<%
Dim arr, str
str = "[""Foo"", ""Bar""]"
Set arr = jsonParse(str)
Call jsArrayPush(arr, "Hello")
Call jsArrayPush(arr, "World")
str = jsonStringify(arr) ' ["Foo","Bar","Hello","World"]
%>

Answer 2

You're comparing two different things. Your example of a "modern array" is what is called literal syntax. This tells the processor to create an array using the data and structure provided. The indexing order is typically preserved in these languages.
Your classic examples using Array() are array generating functions. They create arrays in memory with provided values, but don't necessarily imply any sort of structure at all. Many languages specifically indicate that value indexing can vary. Some languages process arrays internally as objects and often require the new keyword in addition to the array function. When this happens it's often referred to as constructor syntax.
Many languages offer one, two, or even all three ways of creating arrays.
VBScript does not offer any variation of the literal syntax.