My question is:  Should users of Dictionary regard the internal
Associations as private, internal and, otherwise, not to be messed
with?

VisualAge had a class called a LookupTable which was identical to a
Dictionary but by using... parallel keys/values Arrays I think, and so
while it could answer an #associationAt:, it would just be a new
object and not part of the Dictionary.  To think one could set the key
of this Association would not allow compatibility with regular
Dictionary.

So I personally have always regarded the internal Associations as private..

On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 11:01 AM, Bob Arning <arning315 at comcast.net> wrote:
> It's not clear what you are asking. Dictionaries have long had methods like
> #associationAt:. One would want to be careful using such methods, but they
> do seem to be *public*, however fuzzy that distinction might be.
>
> Cheers,
> Bob
>
> On 5/14/13 11:42 AM, Chris Muller wrote:
>
> It's enough to change the key of the association to a different object.
>
> True but that would be circumventing the public API of the Dictionary
> would it not?  Is there any path through the API where one obtains
> such access to the underlying Associations?
>
>
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>