[Oberon] How to mimic an associative array

[Bob Walkden]

[...]
> An 'associative array' is just against the nature of Pascal, 
> Modula, Oberon, C, assembler, Forth, Basic, whatever. In fact 
> it is against the nature of programming in general.

that seems a bit strong really. As far as I can see this 'associative array'
is just a way of implementing a mathematical relation where the domain
happens to be a string type. Building it into the language is not the
Wirthian way for reasons we are all familiar with, but other language
designers must be allowed to do what they want, surely? We're not obliged to
use their language.

Calling it an array implies a certain implementation method. But it could be
built into a language using a less loaded name and with appropriate
operators and type-safe features and needn't necessarily be a bad thing. In
fact, it could be an important part of a relational database language.

B