Lists & maps

Coming from Python / Node? Hale has no built-in list / [] that grows, no dict / {}, no Vec<T> or Map<K,V>. Instead you declare a small locus and annotate it with a form — @form(vec) for a growable list, @form(hashmap) for a keyed map. You get the same operations (push, get, len, set, …); they’re just methods on a locus you named.

A growable list — @form(vec)

@form(vec)
locus Names {
    capacity { heap items of String; }
}

fn main() {
    let names = Names { };
    names.push("Ada");
    names.push("Grace");
    println(names.len());            // 2
    let first = names.get(0) or "";  // "Ada"
}

Three things are happening:

• @form(vec) tells the compiler “this locus is a growable list.” It synthesizes the methods for you: push, get, set, pop, len, is_empty, and sorting.
• capacity { heap items of String; } is where the list’s storage lives. Read it as “this list holds Strings.” The element type comes from here.
• get and pop are fallible — an index might be out of bounds — so you address them with or, just like any fallible call:

  let x = names.get(99) or "(missing)";
  

Iterate with for over the items:

for name in names.items {
    println(name);
}

(The indexed while i < names.len() + .get(i) walk also works, and is what you want when you need the index — but prefer .items as the default: it reads better and, on hashmaps especially, it’s dramatically faster. A hashmap walk via key_at(i)/entry_at(i) rescans from slot 0 on every call — O(cap×len) for the whole walk — while for e in m.entries visits each occupied slot once.)

The element type can be anything — a primitive, or one of your own type records:

type Player { id: String; score: Int; }

@form(vec)
locus Roster {
    capacity { heap players of Player; }
}

A keyed map — @form(hashmap)

A map keys entries by a field on the value itself — the key is one of the record’s fields, named with indexed_by:

type Account { user: String; balance: Int; }

@form(hashmap)
locus Accounts {
    capacity { pool entries of Account indexed_by user; }
}

fn main() {
    let accts = Accounts { };
    accts.set(Account { user: "ada",   balance: 100 });
    accts.set(Account { user: "grace", balance: 250 });

    let a = accts.get("ada") or Account { user: "", balance: 0 };
    println(a.balance);                       // 100
    println(accts.has("grace"));              // true
}

• set(value) takes the whole record and reads the key out of its indexed_by field — there’s no separate key argument.
• get(key) and remove(key) are fallible (the key might be absent); has(key) returns a plain Bool.
• Keys are Int or String.

This “the key is a field of the value” shape matches how keyed stores almost always look in practice — you rarely have a key that isn’t already part of the thing you’re storing.

A bounded queue — @form(ring_buffer)

When you want a fixed-size FIFO that drops the oldest entry once it’s full (recent-events buffers, sliding windows):

@form(ring_buffer, cap = 64)
locus Recent {
    capacity { pool events of String; }
}

push returns a Bool — false when the buffer is full — so you decide whether to drop or apply backpressure. pop is fallible on empty.

A list inside a type — bounded[T; N]

The forms above are loci — whole entities with their own lifecycle. A type is pure data, so it can’t hold one. What it CAN hold (since 2026-07-02) is a bounded collection — a fixed-capacity list laid out inline in the value:

type Message {
    id:   String;
    tags: bounded[String; 32];
}

fn main() {
    let msg = Message { id: "msg1" };   // tags starts empty —
                                        // bounded fields can't be
                                        // spelled in a literal
    push(msg.tags, "urgent") or raise;
    push(msg.tags, "billing") or raise;

    for tag in msg.tags {
        println(tag);
    }
    println(count(msg.tags));           // 2
}

Six operations, all compiler intrinsics (types stay method-free, like len(s)):

• push(f, x) — append; fallible with CapacityError { cap, count } when full. What to do at capacity is your policy, written in the or arm.
• at(f, i) — read slot i; fallible IndexError out of range.
• set(f, i, x) — overwrite a live slot; fallible IndexError.
• count(f) — the live count (the capacity lives in the type).
• clear(f) — reset to empty.
• truncate(f, n) — shrink the count (never grows); with set, this is the drop-front idiom for FIFO windows.

Use bounded when the maximum is known and the list is a field of a value — per-message tags, route parameters, a chat window. The old workaround (a tab-separated string you re-parse on every read) is retired: pond’s router, LLM, and conversation libraries all migrated. Whole-struct copies carry the elements automatically, and scalar-element bounded values even cross the zero-copy bus as flat bytes.

Why a form instead of a generic type

A list isn’t just “a type parameterized by its element” — it’s a bundle of decisions: contiguous memory, dynamic length, who owns the storage, what happens to it when the owner goes away. A form makes those decisions at the declaration, and picks an implementation tuned for the element type. The upshot for you at this level is simple: @form(vec) is your list, @form(hashmap) is your map. The reasoning behind forms — and how to choose between them on performance grounds — is in Forms under the hood at the systems level.

One form per locus: a locus is a list or a map, not both. If you need both, that’s two loci — which is usually what the data wanted anyway.

Next: Records & data.