Data Dictionary

The data dictionary class is the lookup mechanism for the library. In the CVT, this is another FGV shared across every data type. In the tag bus, this is a class we've called the "dictionary". This dictionary takes a tag name and tells you where in the dataset it is located. As shown in the previous picture, it is not necessary to have a dictionary in order to use the tag table, but it allows developers to name values and handle change more easily.

Internal to this lookup, and part of the reason this is beta, is that the lookup uses a new search. Rather than using the traditional variant attribute lookup, this implements a custom binary search. While about 30% slower to initialize, the lookup only takes about half as long as the variant lookup. With this kind of performance boost, it makes it that much more likely that users will be able to do the lookup inside of their performance-critical code, rather than taking steps required in the CVT like looking up data indices during initialization.