Name Rascalopedia/Set

Synopsis An unordered collection of values without duplicates.

Description A set is a collection of values with the following properties:

• The set maybe empty.
• The values in the list are unordered.
• A value can only occur once.
• The set has a size that is equal to the number of values in the set.

In Rascal, sets are surrounded by braces { and } and the elements are separated by commas. Each set has a type of the form set[T], where T is the smallest common type of all set elements. See Rascal:Values/Set for a description of sets and their operators and Rascal:Prelude/Set for functions on sets.

Examples

Sets in daily life

• A cutlery set consisting of knife, fork and the like.
• A crowd of people.
• A stamp collection (but be aware that the duplicates will disappear!)

credit credit

Sets in computer science

• The files in a directory. Of course, when you order them (by name, modification date) you need a List to represent them.
• The set of moves an opponent can play in a game.
• The set of nodes in a network.

Sets in Rascal

• The empty set: {}. Its type is set[void].
• A set of integers: {3, 1, 4}. Its type is set[int].
• A set of mixed-type values: {3, "a", 4}. Its type is set[value].

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