VBS - Create object and pass that through functions and subs? - arrays

Question

I'm trying something out. I've got this system where a bunch of scripts are triggered at certain event handlers. This is used during the creation of Users in Active Directory.
So, what I think I need is a function that basically collects the properties of the user being processed into - hopefully, an object. And then returning that object and using it in other functions and subs. So that I can perhaps reach the properties I want using only "myObject.firstname" and that's it.
How can I create an object, create and set values in it and returning the entire object? Is this possible in VBS?
Edit: What would be best if I could create an Object that holds these properties and just being able to access them whenever I need to.
I'm basically after something like this:
Public Sub Main()
Set userStream = New objUser
msgbox objUser.firstname
msgbox objUser.lastname
msgbox objUser.username
End Sub
Edit: To explain furter, I have this library script which is called 'libGetUserProperties'
It's in this I want the function and Class. Then I just import this library script in the actual script that is run at runtime. Looks like this:
libGetUserProperties:
Public Function getobjUser(ByRef Request, ByVal From)
Dim thisUserObject
Set thisUserObject = New objUser
'If type = 0, data comes from AD
If From = 0 Then
thisUserObject.firstname = "some string"
thisUserObject.lastname = "some string"
End If
'If type = 1, data comes from Request stream
If From = 1 Then
thisUserObject.firstname = "some string"
thisUserObject.lastname = "some string"
End If
Set getobjUser = thisUserObject
End Function
Class objUser
Public firstname
Public lastname
Public username
End Class'
This is what the actual runtime Script looks like:
Dim libGetUserProperties
Set libGetUserProperties = ScriptLib.Load("Script Modules/Library Scripts/libGetUserProperties")
Sub onPreCreate(Request)
Dim userStream
Set userStream = New objUser
'Do whatever with objUser which contains all of the properties I'm after
End Sub

Answer 1

That’s not possible using VBScript, unless you want to dynamically generate the code for a class, including the properties, save that to file, and then execute that file as a script.
This is so much easier to do using JScript. Since Windows Scripting can handle JScript as well as VBScript, I’d recommend going that way.
If you definitely need VBScript, the best you can go for is a Scripting.Dictionary that would contain the properties as keys:
Dim dicUser
dicUser = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
dicUser("FirstName") = objUser.FirstName
which would allow you to access the first name as follows:
dicUser("FirstName")
Update
If you want to write a function which creates a dictionary and returns that, this is how to do it in VBScript:
Function RememberTheUser(Request)
Dim dicResult
Set dicResult = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
dicResult("FirstName") = Request.GetTheFirstName
Set RememberTheUser = dicResult
End Function
Which can then be assigned to some other variable:
Dim dicUser ' in the main section of the script, this means it's a global variable
Sub onPreCreate(Request)
' ...
Set dicUser = RememberTheUser(Request)
' ...
End Sub
Sub onSomethingLater()
WScript.Echo dicUser("FirstName") ' It's still accessible here
End Sub
In JScript, it’s a lot easier: just create a new object, and tack on new properties.
function readObject(dataSource) {
var result = {};
result.source = dataSource;
result.firstName = dataSource.firstName;
result['lastName'] = dataSource.FunctionThatGetsLastName();
}
Note that in JScript, object properties can be accessed using the object.property notation, but also through the object['property'] notation, which is very useful when you have dynamically-named properties. ('property' in the second notation is a string, and can be replaced by any expression that returns a string).

Answer 2

Keeping with VBScript, a disconnected recordset would work as well and is possibly faster than a dictionary; see here for an example.