Question

I have a groovy DSL script like this:

entity(attribute1:"one", attribute2:"two")

so far so good. I run the script and set the script’s delegate to a class where entity’s defined, and the class handles everything.

Now I want to do this:

entity(attibute1:(subattribute1:"one", subattribute2:"two"))

Is this somehow syntactically possible? Since (subattribute1:”one”, subattribute2:”two”) itself doesn’t mean anything, I’m assuming not, though I’m wondering if there are some Groovy magic that I’m not aware of that allows this.

And I don’t want to do

entity(attibute1:[subattribute1:"one", subattribute2:"two"])

even though I know that works. Just a syntax preference.

Answer 1

No, you have to use the square brace (as you have said you don’t want).

The first example:

entity(attribute1:"one", attribute2:"two")

is a shortcut for actually calling:

entity( [ attribute1:"one", attribute2:"two" ] )

So, you would either need the square braces, (to signify the attribute1 key contains a map, or you would need to prefix the brace with another method name such as:

entity(attibute1:attribute(subattribute1:"one", subattribute2:"two"))