"Andrew P. Black" wrote:
Normally, I expect that
{1->#a. 2->#b. 3->#c} as: Dictionaryand {1->#a. 2->#b. 3->#c} asDictionary
would do the same thing, in fact, it is usual for the asFoo method to be implemented using self as: Foo, which in turn is implemented using Foo newFrom: self. However, as Mark correctly points out, asDictionary is weird. Moreover, there are no send of this message in my image.
SequenceableCollection >> asDictionary "Answer a Dictionary whose keys are string versions of my indices and whose values are my elements. 6/12/96 sw"
| aDictionary | aDictionary _ Dictionary new. 1 to: self size do: [:i | aDictionary add: (Association key: i printString value: (self at: i))]. ^ aDictionaryI wonder if anyone (sw?) can shed light on where this method came from, and why it is part of the image? I think that Mark had the right idea when he suggested changing it, or at least renaming it to something like asDictionaryKeyedByStrings.
I agree that it seems too specialized to be called "asDictionary", asDictionaryKeyedByStrings might be better. Also, it's probably better for asXXX to be implemented like "as: XXX" as a default, as you say.
Perhaps one reason that it is the implementation of asDictionary is that it does work for pretty much any SequenceableCollection, whereas "... as: Dictionary" will break unless you happen to have a collection of Associations.
I was just going to post an [ENH] changing asDictionary to implement "as: Dictionary", which is always a good way to force the issue, but given the problem above, maybe I will hold off.
- Doug Way dway@riskmetrics.com