Can I return a List from a LotusScript Function? - return-value

Question

I want to return a List from a Function in LotusScript.
eg.
Function myfunc() List As Variant
Dim mylist List As Variant
mylist("one") = 1
mylist("two") = "2"
myfunc = mylist
End Function
Dim mylist List As Variant
mylist = myfunc()
Is this possible?
If so, what is the correct syntax?

Answer 1

It seems you can't return a List from a Function.
You can easily wrap it in a class though and return the class.
eg.
Class WrappedList
Public list List As Variant
End Class
Function myfunc() As WrappedList
Dim mylist As New WrappedList
mylist.list("one") = 1
mylist.list("two") = "2"
Set myfunc = mylist
End Function
Answer was found here: LotusScript's List bug strikes again

Answer 2

This works fine for me. I've set one value to string and the other to integer so you can see that the variants behave themselves.
Sub Initialize
Dim mylist List As Variant
Call myfunc(mylist)
Msgbox "un = " + mylist("one")
Msgbox "deux = " + cstr(mylist("two"))
End Sub
Sub myfunc(mylist List As Variant)
mylist("one") = "1"
mylist("two") = 2
End Sub

Answer 3

Simply put you gotta have a function that returns a variant. I can see that you like to do it in an object oriented fashion, but if you just want to "get it done" procedurally is the easiest.
Although there are a couple of ways to do this, this is my preferred way. Note that you can create a list of any primitive data type, (ie string, variant, integer, long etc).
Function myfunc as variant
dim mylist list as variant
mylist("somename") = "the value you want to store"
mylist("someothername") = "another value"
myfunc = mylist
End Function
To use myfunc ..
sub initialise
dim anotherlist list as variant
anotherlist = myfunc
end sub
You can add parameters to myfunc if you need to by simply defining myfunc this way
function myfunc(val1 as variant, val2 as variant) as variant
You call it the same ways with parameters like this
anotherlist = myfunc("a value", "another value")
Note that "variant" is your universal datatype. What's important is that myfunc as a variant is the only way you can return lists and variants from a function.

Answer 4

You can get a function toi return a list, just get rid of "List" bit in your function, so instead of
Function myfunc() List As Variant
...
End Function
...do:
Function myfunc() As Variant
then you can call your function as you already do.
Dim mylist List As Variant
mylist = myfunc()
Lists are great and I use them all the time, but I have found one limitation with lists...
if if have a function like:
Public Function returnMyList() as Variant
Dim myList List as Variant
Dim s_test as String
Dim i as Integer
Dim doc as NotesDocuemnt
Dim anotherList List as String
'// ...set your variables however you like
myList( "Some Text" ) = s_text
myList( "Some Integer" ) = i
myList( "Some Doc" ) = doc
'// If you returned the list here, you're fine, but if you add
'// another list...
anotherList( "one" ) = ""
anotherList( "two" ) = ""
myList( "Another List" ) = anotherList
'// This will cause an error
returnMyList = myList
'// I bodge around this by writting directly to a List
'// that is set as global variable.
End Function