I.1.4 Manipulation of abbreviations

When a Samcef banque is read into a DataBase, the abbreviations defined in the Samcef model are read as well and stored into the Samcef DataBase in a mapping of string objects. Five methods allow the manipulation of abbreviations stored in the DataBase:

1.

“clearAbbreviations” has no argument and clears all the abbreviations stored into the DataBase.

2.

“addAbbreviation” adds one abbreviation to the DataBase. The method has two String arguments: the key and the value.

3.

“addAbbreviations” adds a list of abbreviations to the DataBase. The method has one argument: A Hash object containing the correspondence between keys and values. Each pair is of course a pair of String objects.

4.

“NbrAbbreviations” attribute has no argument and returns the number of abbreviations stored in the DataBase.

5.

“getAbbreviation” returns the String value of one abbreviation. The method has one String argument: the key of the abbreviation.

6.

“checkAbbreviationExists” returns “true” if the abbreviation exists. The method has one String argument: the key of the abbreviation.

7.

“getAbbreviations” returns a Hash object containing all the abbreviations stored in the DataBase. This method has no argument.

Note that, even though no abbreviation is defined in other solver models, the abbreviation methods defined in DataBase class can also be used when one works with all models. This is why the methods listed above are defined in generic “DataBase” class and not in “SamcefDb” class described in Chapter III.2.