Doesn't "If col is Nothing" do the same?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think what Randy is getting at is having something like:

set dc = New NotesDocumentCollection(db)

That would give you an empty documentcollection to do things with, instead of having to do a null search or something else that costs extra processing to achieve the same result.

Exactly James. Without a New method to instantiate an object of this class, we have to be a bit creative (and as a result, less efficient) by using methods of other classes to create the empty collection (bogus search, responses to a bogus profile document, etc.).

If I create subs/functions that take a NotesDocucumentCollection as one of the arguments, I want an easy method for creating an empty collection and then adding the documents that need to be processed by the sub/function to the collection.

I like the idea of a creating an empty collection. I too have some goofy code for getting an empty collection. But I think the sorting thing is redundant. The ViewEntryCollection already allows you to do this. It is a little more complicated than working with a doc collection, but it's not very difficult to do.

I think NotesDocumentCollection.sort should really be called out on it's own, it is a much wanted feature.

Yes, a 'new' method would be nice - and less silly :-)

I don't think I have ever had the need to create an empty document collection. What would be a reason for needing this?

@7 - It isn't a technique that I use often, but at times I do have a need to create an empty document collection (for folder processing, workflow processing, etc.). Having an empty collection is not the goal though. The goal is to have total programmatic contol over which documents are included in the collection and not be at the mercy of methods of other classes that are used to create a collection.

There must be a lot of us employing the "silly search" technique to get an empty Notesdocumentcollection. If new NotesDocumentCollection is too hard perhaps IBM coluld give use a NotesDatabase.doSillySearch method to simplify the code a little!

The reason could be that e.g. you created the function that does some processing on collection of docs and then afterwards you would like to call that function on a few docs that aren't gathered using one collection's init. methods so you have to call profileDoc.Responses in order to create empty collection, but then the profileDoc remains in your db, unless you dereference it and delete it using it's noteID...

It's simply fundamental in OO development.

This is actually available - right now! Try this:

do some dimmin', then

Set yourDocCollection = yourDb.CreateDocumentCollection()

Voila! You've got an empty NotesDocumentCollection. It doesn't appear to be documented, but it is used in the LotusInboxCleanup agent in the mail8.ntf.

Yes please give an option to sort collections ! I'am looking for this since years.

I agree. The sorting of a DocumentCollection would be great.

This feature was delivered (though undocumented) in (I believe) 8.0.2.

Erik and way you can help us ensure that this idea is actually complete?

The CreateDocumentCollection method of the NotesDatabase class is still not documented in Domino Designer 8.5 Help.

SPR # DMAT72JLWW Fixed in release: 7.0.4

Product Area: Designer Technical Area: LotusScript Platform: Cross Platform

Lotus Customer Support APAR: LO28240 What is an APAR?

SPR# DMAT72JLWW - Added NotesDatabase.CreateDocumentCollection method to create empty doc collection.


Might be in 8.5.1's documentation, I'd have to check.

Please note that createdocumentcollection still has issues. Using the Subtract and Merge functions fail. That's probabably why it's undocumented.

My preference is to use...
Set dc = db.GetProfileDocCollection(Chr$(13))
I consider a Carriage Return (CR) (ascii 13) character a very safe (unused) profile name as it is very difficult to create a form name (which is what a profile name is) that only consists of a single CR char. Better in my opinion than profileDoc.Responses as you don't have any profile docs to clean up.