Map Support (was: Re: [Webmacro-devel] #templet directive)

[Eric B. R. <eb...@tc...>]

<snip>
> A built-in Map declaration syntax would help here.  E.g.,
<snip>
> Since I don't see this coming anytime soon, how about a $map function:

Disclaimer:  I only spent an hour and 15 minutes on this...

I've just committed some highly experimental Map support into CVS.

#set $map = { "key" => "value", "foo" => "bar" }
$map.key
$map.foo

Along with all the variants such as a map of maps, an empty map (#set 
$foo = {}), and of course using $variables as keys and values.

I haven't written test cases yet, but some quick-n-dirty standalone 
testing shows it works, PLUS all existing test cases still pass.  woo 
hoo!

We can tweak the syntax, but I *really* like having the curly braces 
around the map.  Plus, I tried to make it work with square brackets but 
javacc got confused with lists, and I don't understand LOOKAHEAD yet.

Right now it uses a java.util.HashMap as the backing store, but I'd 
like to somehow make this configurable via WebMacro.properties, so we 
can use any Map implementation.  Maybe TreeMap or some custom 
CaseInsensitiveStringKeyMapThingie  so $map.Key and $map.keY are the 
same thing.

Who knows.   But I think this is a good start.

eric