added another overload to convert ConfigValuePtr to ConfigArray&, whi…

…ch fixes a bug in reading out an array

Common/Include/ScriptableObjects.h

@@ -181,6 +181,7 @@ namespace Microsoft { namespace MSR { namespace ScriptableObjects {
     //     - ConfigLambdas (default values of named arguments)
 
     struct IConfigRecord;
+    class ConfigArray;
 
     // TODO: separate this out from BrainScript to an interface that still does type casts--possible?
     class ConfigValuePtr : public shared_ptr<Object>
@@ -248,6 +249,7 @@ namespace Microsoft { namespace MSR { namespace ScriptableObjects {
         // Linux gcc barfs on this ^^ for 'us = (double)((wstring)arg).size();' due to some ambiguity error (while it works fine with Visual Studio).
         // If you encounter this, instead say 'us = (double)((const wstring&)arg).size();' with a &. Don't forget the const (I have seen broken typecasts without).
         operator const IConfigRecord &() const { return AsRef<IConfigRecord>(); }
+        operator const ConfigArray &() const { return AsRef<ConfigArray>(); }
         operator double() const { return AsRef<Double>(); }
         operator float() const { return (float) AsRef<Double>(); }
         operator bool() const { return AsRef<Bool>(); }

MachineLearning/CNTK/CNTK.cpp

@@ -1285,6 +1285,7 @@ void DoEvalBeamSearch(const ConfigParameters& config, IDataReader<ElemType>& rea
     eval.BeamSearch(&reader, testDataWriter, evalNodeNamesVector, outputNodeNamesVector, mbSize[0], beamWidth, epochSize);
 }
 
+// TODO: per discussion with Dong Yu, Guoguo Chen, and Yu Zhang, this function can be removed.
 template <typename ElemType>
 void DoSequenceTrain(const ConfigParameters& config)
 {
@@ -1774,13 +1775,12 @@ int wmainWithBS(int argc, wchar_t* argv[])   // called from wmain which is a wra
 
     // MAIN LOOP that executes the actions
     auto actionsVal = config[L"actions"];
-    // Note: weird behavior. If 'actions' is a single value (rather than an array) then it will have been resolved already. That means, it has already completed the action.
+    // Note: weird behavior. If 'actions' is a scalar value (rather than an array) then it will have been resolved already after the above call. That means, it has already completed its action!
     //       Not pretty, but a direct consequence of the lazy evaluation. The only good solution would be to have a syntax for arrays including length 0 and 1.
     //       Since this in the end behaves indistinguishable from the array loop below, we will keep it for now.
     if (actionsVal.Is<ScriptableObjects::ConfigArray>())
     {
-        const ScriptableObjects::ConfigArray & actions = actionsVal.AsRef<ScriptableObjects::ConfigArray>();
-        // Note: We must use AsRef<>() here. Just assigning (using the auto-typecast) will make a copy, which will ^^ not work since the elements are not yet resolved.
+        const ScriptableObjects::ConfigArray & actions = actionsVal;
         for (int i = actions.GetIndexRange().first; i <= actions.GetIndexRange().second; i++)
         {
             actions.At(i, [](const wstring &){});  // this will evaluate and thus execute the action

MachineLearning/CNTKSGDLib/SGD.cpp

@@ -429,6 +429,7 @@ namespace Microsoft { namespace MSR { namespace CNTK {
         TrainOrAdaptModel(startEpoch, net, refNet, refNode, trainSetDataReader, validationSetDataReader);
     }
 
+    // TODO: per discussion with Dong Yu, Guoguo Chen, and Yu Zhang, this function can be removed.
     template<class ElemType>
     void SGD<ElemType>::SequenceTrain(IComputationNetBuilder<ElemType>* netBuilder, wstring origModelFileName,
                        IDataReader<ElemType>* trainSetDataReader, IDataReader<ElemType>* validationSetDataReader,