CollectionBuilder := Object clone.
A builder is used to construct a specific type of data structure,
usually a collection. The CollectionBuilder object is designed to be
the parent of all such collection builders.
Note that, while it is not strictly required that builder objects
inherit from CollectionBuilder, it is often logical to do so.
However, a minimal builder object could feasibly inherit from Object
directly or even be a non-traditional object. Specifically, collection
builder objects are required to have the following methods defined on
them.
appendfinishclonetoStringIn particular, all Latitude builders must be cloneable, so the underlying object that is being built must also be cloneable.
CollectionBuilder append (element).Appends an element to the builder’s data structure.
CollectionBuilder finish.Terminates building and returns the finished object. After calling
finish, the methods append and finish may not have meaningful
semantics on the builder object anymore.
ArrayBuilder.Constructs an array, using pushBack.
DictBuilder.Constructs a dictionary. The append method on DictBuilder expects
to be given a cons cell, whose car is a symbol. The car is used as the
key and the cdr as the value. If the same key is provided to append
multiple times, the subsequent invocations will overwrite the
original.
[up]
[prev - The Collection Mixin Object]
[next - The Conditional Object]