Is there a way to do associative arrays in REXX?

Question

I have some Perl code (for performance analysis) first developed under Linux which now needs to be ported to the mainframe. Apparently REXX is the scripting language of choice on that platform but this Perl script relies heavily on associative arrays (basically arrays where the index is a string).

Is there a way that in REXX? How would I code up something like:

$arr{"Pax"} = "Diablo";
$arr{"Bob"} = "Dylan";
print $arr{"Pax"} . "\n";
if (defined $arr{"no"}) {
        print "Yes\n";
} else {
        print "No\n";
}

Answer 1

You can use stem variables, not exactly like arrays but very similar

/* REXX */
NAME = PAX
ARRAY.NAME = "DIABLO"
NAME = BOB
ARRAY.NAME = "DYLAN"
NAME = 'PAX'
SAY "ARRAY.PAX " IS ARRAY.NAME
NAME = 'BOB'
SAY "ARRAY.BOB " IS ARRAY.NAME
NAME = 'SANDY'
SAY "ARRAY.SANDY " IS ARRAY.NAME
IF ARRAY.NAME = "ARRAY.SANDY" THEN SAY "ARRAY.SANDY IS EMPTY"

The above Rexx will print

ARRAY.PAX  IS DIABLO
ARRAY.BOB  IS DYLAN
ARRAY.SANDY  IS ARRAY.SANDY
ARRAY.SANDY IS EMPTY

They can also be compound like a.b.c A stem variable if empty will return itself. There is no way to iterate of a stem that does not use consecutive numbers as the index that I know of.

IBM Manual with reference to Stem variables

Perl is available as an extra free feature for ZOS IBM Ported Tools for z/OS