[kotlin2]

Now do an associative array containing another associative array.

[squirt]

Easy.

  declare -A outer=(
    [inner]="_inner"
  )
  declare -A _inner=(
    [key]="value"
  )

Access inner elements via a nameref.

  declare -n inner="${outer[inner]}"
  echo "${inner[key]}"
  # value

Currently writing a compiler in Bash built largely on this premise.

[kotlin2]

That seems really inconvenient to be honest.

[snidane]

Flatten the damn thing and process it relationally. Linear data scans and copying are so fast on modern hardware that it doesn't matter. It's counterintuitive for people to learn that flattened nested structure with massive duplication still processes faster than that deeply nested beast because you have to chase pointers all over the place. Unfortunately that's what people learn at java schools and they get stuck with that pointer chasing paradigm for the rest of their careers.

[fomine3]

Then what I need is tuple on bash

[Spivak]

Sometimes a you just have to accept a language's limitations.

Try in Python to make a nested defaultdict you can access like the following.

    d = <something>
    d["a"]["b"]["c"]  # --> 42

Can't be done because it's impossible for user code to detect what the last __getitem__ call is and return the default.

Edit: Dang it, I mean arbitrary depth.

[kotlin2]

    c = defaultdict(lambda: 42)
    b = defaultdict(lambda: c)
    a = defaultdict(lambda: b)
    a["a"]["b"]["c"]  # --> 42

[Macha]

In this case you're chaining discreet lookup operations where it sounds like you really want a composite key. You could easily implement this if you accepted the syntax of it as d["a.b.c"] or d["a", "b", "c"] or d.query("a", "b", "c")

Otherwise I'm not sure of a mainstream language that would let you do a.get(x).get(y) == 42 but a.get(x).get(y).get(z) == 42, unless you resorted to monkey patching the number type, as it implies 42.get(z) == 42, which seems.. silly