Explicit declaration of dictionaries using curly braces

The Dictionary operator

This explicitly converts a String to a Dictionary. That used to be important, but the introduction of typed local variables makes these unnecessary in many cases.

The preferred usage is for declaring Dictionaries is using {… } rather than the previous dictionary() operator. Thus:

var:dictionary vDict = {English:I; Latin: ego}; 

replaces both these existing methods—though they still work (the quoted string version already bing deprecated):

var:dictionary vDict="English:I; Latin: ego"; 

var:dictionary vDict=dictionary("English:I; Latin: ego"); 

Nested Lists in Dictionaries

The square-bracket List declaration can be used to define multi-item key values

var:dictionary vDict = {Apple:[red;green];Lemon:yellow}; 

Calling Dictionary keys

By preference, dictionary keys should not be quoted though for legacy reasons either form will still work:

	$MyDictionary = {Latin: "ego"; English: "I"};
	// Preferred form
	$MyValue = $MyDictionary[Latin];
	// and not
	$MyValue = $MyDictionary["Latin"];
	// though *both* forms work is only for legacy support

The Order Of [Dictionary].keys

Tinderbox dictionaries currently depend on AppKit’s NSDictionary, which appears to use a hash to order its keys. So, the (number) order is arbitrary, i.e. calling a value using $MyDictionary[N] is not recommended.

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See also—notes linking to here:

• Square brackets: dictionary data keys