Well, "car" and "cdr" don't really fit; the key and value of a pair can be any type of object, unlike the Lisp case where the cdr is always a list (while the car can be either a list or an atom). But you can always define your own accessor methods with whatever names you like. :)
What's an associative list, how does it differ from an associative array, and how is it wimpy? Perl hashes *are* associative arrays; we only started calling them "hashes" because it's shorter. Java uses the even shorter term "Map" (no extra syllable in the plural), while Python calls them "dictionaries", but they're all the same thing . . . I like .key/.value because it lets us mentally slice a hash the other way without changing the terminology. Normally we regard a hash as a pair of arrays, one of which is returned by the 'keys' function and one by the 'values' function. Now we can instead regard it as an array of pairs and use the singular 'key' and 'value' on each one to get the corresponding element. (In fact, I imagine that in Perl6 the 'each' function will, in scalar context, return a pair object?) On Fri, Oct 05, 2001 at 06:30:17PM -0400, Sam Tregar wrote: > Can I get a .car and a .cdr please? In my limited mind "key" and "value" > are specific to hashes and their wimpy brother associative lists. > > -sam > Can I get a what what? -- Mark J. REED <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
