[stosse]

Hi fellow foamers,
I am trying to figure out how to add an entry to a list in an IOdictionary.

Specifically, I am trying to add a dictionary to the "actions" list in an allready existing topoSetDict (see example below), possibly also modifying an existing entry. How would I do this? I know how to add to and modify a dictionary, but I can't figure out how to do the same with a list.

before:

actions
(
    {
        name    foo;
        etc.
    }
);

after:

actions
(
    {
        name    foo;
        etc.
    }
    {
        name    bar;
        etc.
    }
);

Regards,
Sindre

[RjwV]

Hello Sindre,

I am not sure how to do what you requested (and perhaps I misunderstood your request), but is it not possible to make your dict like this?

names
(
    foo
    bar
);

foo
{
    action_foo;
};

bar
{
    action_bar;
};

This is not so difficult to program into OpenFOAM.

Kind regards,
Ramon

[stosse]

Hi Ramon,
No, the formatting of the dictionary is set.
I figured out how to modify entries in a list of dictionaries. The below example adds a field "test" which is true if the name of the dict is "baffleFaces" and false otherwise. However, when the dictionary is written, all formatting (e.g. line breaks and whitespace) disappears, so the topoSetDict becomes very ugly

IOdictionary topoSetDict
        (
            IOobject
            (
                "topoSetDict",
                runTime.system(),
                runTime,
                IOobject::READ_IF_PRESENT,
                IOobject::AUTO_WRITE
            )
    );
   
    PtrList<dictionary> actions(topoSetDict.lookup("actions"));
    
    const word bfname = "baffleFaces";
    for(int i; i<actions.size(); i++){
        const word name = actions[i].lookup("name");
        
        if (name.compare(bfname)==0){
            actions[i].add("test", "true", true);
        }
        else{
            actions[i].add("test", "false", true);
        }
    }

    topoSetDict.add("actions", actions, true); //true flag merges dictionaries
    
    topoSetDict.regIOobject::write();

[sk11]

I could do this using creating a list of dictionaries and adding them by append().

for example :

List<dictionary> actions;
dictionary actionDict;
actionDict.add("name",foo);
... 

actions.append(actionDict);


topoSetSict.add("actions",actions,true);
topoSetDict.regIOobject::write();

But with this code I have the same problem where IODictionary writes lists to file without newlines which is not userfreindly(OF version 8.0). This is perfect for list of scalars or vectors but not for list of dictionaries like actions in topoSetDict. It should be written as subdictionaries, one keyword per line.
Is there a way to control how lists of dictionaries (or entries) are written to the file?

for example, cellSet dict files generated by topoSet contains a list of labels with one label per line.