Design with Maps

Maps allow you to model data with its contextual meaning. The keys of a map can give the context and the values are the specific data.

Define a shopping list of items you want, including how many of each item you want to buy

(def shopping-list
  {"cat food"  10
   "soya milk" 4
   "bread"     1
   "cheese"    2})

Define a star-wars characters, eg. luke skywalker, jarjar binks. The star-wars character should include a name and a skill (it doesn't matter what these are).

Use the 'get' function to return the value of a given key, eg. name. Use keywords to return a given value if you used keywords for the map keys.

In this answer we have defined three different star-wars characters, all using the same map keys.

(def luke   {:name "Luke Skywalker" :skill "Targeting Swamp Rats"})
(def darth  {:name "Darth Vader"    :skill "Crank phone calls"})
(def jarjar {:name "JarJar Binks"   :skill "Upsetting a generation of fans"})

Lets see what the specific skill luke has

(get luke :skill)

When you use a keyword, eg. :name, as the key in a map, then that keyword can be used as a function call on the map to return its associated value. Maps can also act as functions too.

(:name luke)
(luke :name)

There are also specific functions that work on maps that give all the keys of a map and all the values of that map

(keys luke)
(vals luke)