From: Hal Fulton <hal9000@...>
Date: 2006-08-14T14:14:02+09:00
Subject: Re: A use case for an ordered hash

Austin Ziegler wrote:
> 
> In the case that Hal is talking about, and in the case where
> PDF::Writer uses an ordered hash, this would be inappropriate.
> Insertion-ordered associations are generally better. I will probably
> be modifying PDF::Writer a bit to make it clear that it's using an
> ordered association, not an ordered "hash", but it would be useful to
> have an ordered association. Maybe we *could* take advantage of a
> literal for this:
> 
>  ordered_assoc = ( 1 => 2, 2 => 3, 'a' => 5 )
> 
> Maybe. For Ruby 2.0.

Either (=>) or [=>] would be fine with me. I'd slightly prefer
the latter.

But the big question is, what would the class be called? I dislike
long names such as Association or AssociativeArray or even
OrderedHash. (I suppose the last might be best of those.)

I once suggested Map -- a nice short name -- but there was some
reason this wasn't acceptable.

I'd even suggest (gasp) letting it inherit from Hash.


Hal