Variant associative arrays

[bearophile]

Byron Heads:

> I have a variant associative array.  In the example below I am 
> wondering
> if there is a way to create the array without having to 
> indicate the
> variant type on all of the values. Would like to be able to 
> write code
> like #2, or something cleaner/better for #1.
> ...
> 	// #1 This works
> 	foo(["first" : HDType("John"),
> 		"last" : HDType("Doe"),
> 		"phone" : HDType(1234546)]);
>
> 	// #2 Wont compile, type mismatch string and long
> 	foo(["first" : "John",
> 		"last" : "Doe",
> 		"phone" : 1234546]);

If your purpose is to write such associative literal without 
repeating the HDType(), then a possibility is to write the data 
in a single string, and feed it to a compile-time function that 
splits it and builds the associative array.

Bye,
bearophile