Re: The new map syntax

Thanks for your detailed response.

I think the spirit of webmacro has been to be web-designer friendly. 
(That is why probably there is no while or break.) I don't think when 
web designers specify the new map syntax, they are expecting that the 
backend will sort it according to the keys or that the map is in a 
random order. It is telling them thet when you specify #set $l = [a, b, 
c], you may get the list in a random order. I think it is ok for a 
designer to call a function if he/she wants to sort it by key or value 
rather than messing up the order.

-ngd



Marc Palmer wrote:

>-----Original Message-----
>From: "Nikhil G. Daddikar" <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 10:52:24 +0530
>Subject: [WebMacro-user] The new map syntax
>
>  
>
>>I like the new #set $map = { k1: v1, k2:v2 } syntax. The only problem
>>is 
>>that it does not use the "List Ordered" Map i.e. when I  want to say 
>>render a select list  from it, it shows things not in the order in
>>which 
>>the map was defined. Is there a way where I can specify the 
>>implementation class to use? I use JDK 1.5 and  would like to specify 
>>the LinkedHashMap.
>>    
>>
>
>No, I don't believe this is possible. 
>
>I'd say it's generally better not rely on the order of definition of map
>elements.
>
>If you need ordering you can simply create 2 lists. It's not that pretty
>but...
>
>Alternatively, and usually this makes sense for "human" use, you would
>populate lists etc based on a sort order rather than listed order - so you
>can just write a trivial helper to return a sorted list of the keys:
>
>public class SortTool
>{
>    public static final Object sort(Object list)
>    {
>        List l = ListUtil.toList(list);
>        Collections.sort(l);
>        return l;        
>    }
>}
>
>...and use it like this:
>
>#set $sortedKeys = $Sorter.sort($myMap.keySet().iterator())
>
>...of course you can make the usage of this tool a LOT nicer by adding
>some more intelligence / overidden methods:
>
>public class SortTool
>{
>    public static final Object sort(Object list)
>    {
>        List l = ListUtil.toList(list);
>        Collections.sort(l);
>        return l;        
>    }
>    
>    public static final Object sortKeys(Map map)
>    {
>        return sort( map.keySet().iterator());        
>    }
>}
>
>...and use it like this:
>
>#set $sortedKeys = $Sorter.sortKeys($myMap)
>
>
>Cheers
>
>
>
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