Welcome to our next unit! So far, you've done excellent work learning about lists, tuples, and maps. Now, it's time to take a step further and delve into nested structures in Elixir. This is where we start combining those fundamental data structures to manage more complex data.

In this unit, you will learn how to create and access nested data structures in Elixir. Nested structures allow you to store structured data efficiently and navigate through it with ease. Here's an example of a nested structure:

Elixir
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1user_details = %{
2  user: %{
3    name: "Alice",
4    age: 30,
5    hobbies: ["reading", "coding"]
6  },
7  address: %{
8    city: "New York",
9    zip: 10001
10  }
11}
12
13IO.inspect user_details
14IO.puts user_details[:user][:name]
15IO.inspect user_details[:user][:hobbies]

Let'e break down the code snippet above:

• We define a nested map user_details that contains two main keys: user and address.

  • The user key points to another map containing the user's name, age, and hobbies. The hobbies key points to a list of strings.
  • The address key points to a map with the user's city and zip code.

• We use the IO.inspect function to print the entire user_details map.

• We use IO.puts to access and print the user's name by navigating through the nested structure using the [:user][:name] syntax.

• Similarly, we use IO.inspect to access and print the user's hobbies by navigating through the nested structure using the [:user][:hobbies] syntax.

The output of the code will be:

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1%{
2  address: %{city: "New York", zip: 10001},
3  user: %{age: 30, hobbies: ["reading", "coding"], name: "Alice"}
4}
5Alice
6["reading", "coding"]

Mastering nested structures is vital for handling real-world data, which is often complex and hierarchical. By understanding how to work with nested structures, you can more effectively store and manage detailed information, such as user profiles, configurations, or hierarchical data.

For instance, suppose you’re developing a user profile feature for a web application. You might need to store detailed information about the user, their address, and even a list of hobbies — all within a single, organized data structure. This approach not only keeps your data organized but also makes it easy to retrieve specific pieces of information when needed.

By the end of this lesson, you'll be fully equipped to create and navigate your own nested structures in Elixir. This skill is essential for writing clean, manageable, and scalable Elixir code. Excited to dive in? Let's get started with the practice section!