Dict versus dict

Chiron's base module provides both a dict operator and a Dict factory method, as well as List and list, and analogously Set and unique. Dict and dict both accept the same basic types.

dict({a: 10}) =
Dict({a: 10}) =
Dict([["a", 10]])

dict("abc") =
Dict("abc") =
Dict([[0, "a"], [1, "b"], [2, "c"]]) =
dict(["a", "b", "c"]) =
Dict(["a", "b", "c"]) =
Dict(iter("abc"))

In code, the difference is that Dict is a type and dict is an operator. The difference in practice is that dict first checks whether the first argument is a subtype of Base (which includes all objects using the type system), and whether it implements a dict method. If so, it defers to that polymorphic dict method. Otherwise, it defers to Dict.

var base = require('./base');
var test = require('./test');
exports.Foo = base.type(function (self, supr) {
 self.dict = function () {
  return base.Dict({'a': 10});
 };
});
var foo = exports.Foo();
test.assertEq(
 base.dict(foo),
 base.Dict({'a': 10}),
 'dict behaves as a polymorphic operator'
);

The same difference applies to the polymorphic operators unique (that defers to Set if unique is not a member of the type), or list (that defers to List if list is not a member of the type). object and array are also polymorphic operators that work as copy constructors for Object and Array, but also defer to polymorphic object and array members. The default behaviors of object and array are to copy or coerce the argument to an Object or Array, since Object and Array cannot be used as copy constructors themselves. A complete variety of coercions are possible, extending well into the bizarre and insane.

array("abc") =
["a", "b", "c"]

object([1, 2, 3]) =
{'0': 1, '1': 2, '2': 3}