NamedTuple
NamedTuples are, as their name suggests, named Tuples. That is, they're a tuple-like collection of values, where each entry has a unique name, represented as a Symbol. Like Tuples, NamedTuples are immutable; neither the names nor the values can be modified in place after construction.
Accessing the value associated with a name in a named tuple can be done using field access syntax, e.g. x.a, or using getindex, e.g. x[:a] or x[(:a, :b)]. A tuple of the names can be obtained using keys, and a tuple of the values can be obtained using values.
::: tip Note
Iteration over NamedTuples produces the values without the names. (See example below.) To iterate over the name-value pairs, use the pairs function.
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The @NamedTuple macro can be used for conveniently declaring NamedTuple types.
Examples
julia> x = (a=1, b=2)
(a = 1, b = 2)
julia> x.a
1
julia> x[:a]
1
julia> x[(:a,)]
(a = 1,)
julia> keys(x)
(:a, :b)
julia> values(x)
(1, 2)
julia> collect(x)
2-element Vector{Int64}:
1
2
julia> collect(pairs(x))
2-element Vector{Pair{Symbol, Int64}}:
:a => 1
:b => 2
In a similar fashion as to how one can define keyword arguments programmatically, a named tuple can be created by giving a pair name::Symbol => value or splatting an iterator yielding such pairs after a semicolon inside a tuple literal:
julia> (; :a => 1)
(a = 1,)
julia> keys = (:a, :b, :c); values = (1, 2, 3);
julia> (; zip(keys, values)...)
(a = 1, b = 2, c = 3)
As in keyword arguments, identifiers and dot expressions imply names:
julia> x = 0
0
julia> t = (; x)
(x = 0,)
julia> (; t.x)
(x = 0,)
::: tip Julia 1.5
Implicit names from identifiers and dot expressions are available as of Julia 1.5.
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::: tip Julia 1.7
Use of getindex methods with multiple Symbols is available as of Julia 1.7.
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