Assign variables value through array in Haxe?

Question

How to assign variables a, b, c and d values to 1, 2, 3 and 4 through an array?

var a:Int = 0, b:Int = 0, c:Int = 0, d:Int = 0;
var array1:Array<Int> = [a, b, c, d];
var array2:Array<Int> = [1, 2, 3, 4];

for (i in 0...4)
    array1[i] = array2[i]; //this does not work, it assigns array1's elements instead

trace(a); // this prints 0 instead of 1
trace(b); // 0 instead of 2
trace(c); // 0 instead of 3
trace(d); // 0 instead of 4

Answer 1

The reason this doesn't work is that basic types like Int are immutable. In fact, the variables a, b, c and d might as well not even exist since they never change. If you look at the JS Source tab on try.haxe.org, you'll notice that they're not present in the output:

var array1 = [0,0,0,0];
var array2 = [1,2,3,4];
var _g = 0;
while(_g < 4) {
    var i = _g++;
    array1[i] = array2[i];
}
console.log(0);
console.log(0);
console.log(0);
console.log(0);

This is an optimization of the analzyer.

You'll need some sort of container type to accomplish this, like a class or a typedef. Here's an example using the latter:

class Test {
    static function main() {
        var a:IntContainer = { value: 0 };
        var b:IntContainer = { value: 0 };
        var c:IntContainer = { value: 0 };
        var d:IntContainer = { value: 0 };

        var array1:Array<IntContainer> = [a, b, c, d];
        var array2:Array<Int> = [1, 2, 3, 4];

        for (i in 0...4)
            array1[i].value = array2[i];

        trace(a.value);
        trace(b.value);
        trace(c.value);
        trace(d.value);
    }
}

typedef IntContainer = {
    value:Int
}