Dictionaries
A dictionary is an unordered collection of keys and associated values. A key with its associated value is called a key/value pair. Consider the following:
disc dict(string:int) age = {"eve": 32, "john": 34, "adam": 25};Variable age has as value a dictionary consisting of pairs of strings (the keys) and integers (the values). In this example, each string represents a person’s name, and each integer represents the age of that person. Variable age is initialized with a literal dictionary, containing three key/value pairs. You can think of the dictionary as storing the information that eve is 32 years old, or that the age of eve is 32.
As with sets, dictionaries are unordered. The order of the key/value pairs is irrelevant, {"eve": 32, "adam": 25} is the same dictionary as {"adam": 25, "eve": 32}. For readability, key/value pairs of dictionary literals are normally written in increasing order of their keys. {"adam": 25, "eve": 32} is thus preferred over {"eve": 32, "adam": 25}, as adam goes before eve in a phone book.
Dictionary literals are often written using multiple lines, to get two 'columns' for the keys and values, which can improve readability:
disc dict(string:int) age = {"eve": 32,
"john": 34,
"adam": 25};The default value for dictionary types, is an empty dictionary. The following two variables thus have the same initial value:
disc dict(string:int) x1 = {}; // Explicitly initialized as empty.
disc dict(string:int) x2; // Implicitly initialized as empty.Every key of a dictionary is unique, but they may be associated with the same value. For the above example with ages, the names (keys) are used to uniquely identify people, but multiple people may have the same age (values). It is not allowed to have the same key twice, in a dictionary literal, regardless of whether they map to the same value or to different values:
disc dict(int:int) x1 = {1: 2, 1: 2}; // Invalid due to duplicate key '1'.
disc dict(int:int) x2 = {1: 2, 1: 3}; // Invalid due to duplicate key '1'.The values of a dictionary can be obtained by projection on that dictionary, using the keys:
disc dict(string:int) age = {"adam": 25, "eve": 32, "john": 34};
disc int i;
edge ... do i := age["adam"]; // 'i' becomes '25'
edge ... do i := age["eve"]; // 'i' becomes '32'
edge ... do i := age["carl"]; // error (there is no "carl" key)Projection using a key that exists in the dictionary, results in the associated value. Projection using a key that does not exist in the dictionary, leads to a runtime error.
It is possible to modify single elements of a dictionary, as follows:
disc dict(string:int) age = {"adam": 25, "eve": 32, "john": 34};
edge ... do age["eve"] := 33; // Changes eve's age.
edge ... do age["bob"] := 47; // Adds a new key/value pair.The age of eve is changed from 32 to 33. The age is thus replaced by a new age. The age of bob is set to 47. Since there was no key/value pair for that person in the dictionary, a new key/value pair is added. After the updates of both edges, the value of variable age is {"adam": 25, "bob": 47, "eve": 33, "john": 34}.
Several other standard operators and functions are available to work with dictionaries, including the following:
{"a": 1, "b": 2} = {"b": 2, "a": 1} // true (equality check)
{"a": 1, "b": 2} = {"a": 1, "b": 3} // false
"a" in {"a": 1, "b": 2} // true (key existence check)
"c" in {"a": 1, "b": 2} // false
{"a": 1, "b": 2} + {"b": 3, "c": 4} // {"a": 1, "b": 3, "c": 4} (add/overwrite pairs)
{"a": 1, "b": 2} - {"b": 3, "c": 4} // {"a": 1} (removal based on keys)
{"a": 1, "b": 2} - {"b", "c"} // {"a": 1}
{"a": 1, "b": 2} - ["b", "c"] // {"a": 1}
empty({"a": 1, "b": 2}) // false (empty check)
size({"a": 1, "b": 2}) // 2 (count pairs)