use variant as associative array

[Daniel Keep]

Daniel Keep wrote:
> I got the following to work with Tango's Variant (dmd 1.051 + pre-0.99.9
> trunk):
> 
>     Variant[char[]][int] aa;
> 
>     aa[0] = typeof(aa[0]).init;
>     aa[0]["Month"] = Variant("Jan");
>     aa[0]["Profit"] = Variant(500);
> 
>     aa[1] = typeof(aa[0]).init;
>     aa[1]["Month"] = Variant("Feb");
>     aa[1]["Profit"] = Variant(800);
> 
> There's actually two problems at work here:
> 
> 1. You can't use a nested associative array without initialising it.

Scratch that; it does work.  Huh.  Fancy that.

> 2. You apparently can't assign to an aa of Variants for some reason.
> 
> Keep in mind that Variants are basically a hack on the language; that
> assigning to a Variant value in an AA doesn't work isn't entirely
> surprising.

Another thing that occurred to me; is there any reason you can't do this:

> struct Record
> {
>     char[] month;
>     int profit;
> }
>
> Record[int] aa;
>
> aa[0] = Record("Jan", 500);
> aa[1] = Record("Feb", 800);

Or even this:

> Record[] arr;
> arr ~= Record("Jan", 500);
> arr ~= Record("Feb", 800);

Or even even this:

> enum Month { Jan, Feb, Mar, /* and the rest */ }
> struct Record { Month month; int profit }
> Record[] arr;
> arr ~= Record(Month.Jan, 500);
> arr ~= Record(Month.Feb, 800);

?