General Structure

A deserialized OLDL data should return an array of entries. There are two kinds of entries:

• Pair entries, which we will refer to as Ps while giving some examples.
• Text entries, which we will refer to as Ts while giving some examples.

Check out the example below:

Input	Output
foo bar:baz	[T("foo"), P("bar", "baz")]

In this example, the user provides foo bar:baz as input, which should result as one T with foo and one P with bar and baz as its values.

Frequently Asked Questions

As an implementor, how do I define an array with two types?

In highly object-oriented languages, you can create a base abstract class or interface named Entry and extend or implement it with two concrete classes: Pair and Text. Check out a Dart example below:

abstract class Entry {
  String get value;
}

class Pair extends Entry {
  final String key;
  final String value;

  Pair(this.key, this.value);
}

class Text extends Entry {
  final String value;

  Text(this.value);
}

// somewhere in code

// the result of: `foo bar:baz`
final List<Entry> entries = [
    Text('foo'),
    Pair('bar', 'baz'),
];

If the language you are implementing OLDL has enums with values, you can check out this example in Rust:

enum Entry {
    Text(String),
    Pair(String, String),
}

// somewhere in code

// the result of: `foo bar:baz`
let entries = vec![
    Entry::Text("foo".to_string()),
    Entry::Pair("bar".to_string(), "baz".to_string()),
];