As I expressed in an earlier thread to es-discuss, Anne van Kesteren is currently writing the URL spec, and as part of that he's designing the URLQuery interface, which is essentially a MultiMap (a Map where one key can map to multiple values). I was convinced in the previous thread that trying to make a MultiMap a subclass of Map was a red herring, and that MultiMap should instead be a parallel class to Map, like Set is.
So, I've been working with Anne to design the URLQuery interface against a speculative future MultiMap API. I figured it would be a good idea to run it against es-discuss before we settle on it. ^_^ Note that right now, we've trimmed down the MultiMap features of URLQuery to the bare minimum necessary (getAll and append), to avoid forcing tc39's hand as much as possible. Our approach is that MultiMap should be able to masquerade as a Map, adding the additional functionality in overloads or variant functions. Conceptually, imagine the MultiMap as an ordered list of (k,v) pairs, with no restriction (compare to Map, which places a restriction that there are no pairs with the same k). get(k) => returns the value of the first (k,_) pair, or else undefined. getAll(k) => returns a (possibly empty) array of all values associated with the key set(k,v) => finds the first (k,_) pair, and replaces its value with v. Removes any other (k,_) pairs. If there were no (k,_) pairs, adds (k,v) to the end of the map. setAll(k, [v]) => replaces (k,_) pairs until either the input list or the existing pairs runs out. Removes any other (k,_) pairs. If there were leftover values, adds (k,v) pairs to the end of the map. append(k,v) => adds (k,v) to the end of the map. appendAll(k,[v]) => adds multiple values. Needed? has(k, v?) => return true/false if a (k,_) pair is in the map. If the second arg is provided, returns true/false if (k,v) is in the map. delete(k, v?) => removes all (k,_) pairs from the map. If the second arg is provided, removes only the (k,v) pairs. For iterators, obviously keys() would only return unique keys. Unsure whether values() should return individual values, or arrays of values associate with each key (and same for items()). I lean toward the latter, so that the iterators returned by keys() and values() are comparable (zipping them gets you the same value as calling items()). Would we want a second items()-like iterator that returns the individual (k,v) pairs? Thoughts? ~TJ _______________________________________________ es-discuss mailing list es-discuss@mozilla.org https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss
