# Any plans for CMake dictionaries?

**URL:** https://discourse.cmake.org/t/any-plans-for-cmake-dictionaries/3517
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [June 7, 2021, 12:01pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/any-plans-for-cmake-dictionaries/3517 "2021-06-07T12:01:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![iuliuh](https://discourse.cmake.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/779978/32.png) [@iuliuh](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/iuliuh)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2021, 12:01pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/any-plans-for-cmake-dictionaries/3517/1 "2021-06-07T12:01:25Z")

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Hi,

Are there any plans for introducing support for dictionaries in CMake, like there are for [lists](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/command/list.html)?

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### Author: ![YMba9g8j9CJp0wLoQf5y](https://discourse.cmake.org/user_avatar/discourse.cmake.org/ymba9g8j9cjp0wloqf5y/32/1244_2.png) [@YMba9g8j9CJp0wLoQf5y](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/YMba9g8j9CJp0wLoQf5y)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2021, 12:42pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/any-plans-for-cmake-dictionaries/3517/2 "2021-06-07T12:42:12Z")

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I couldn’t find any GitLab issues related to dictionaries. So I’m not sure there are any plans for it.

Could you provide a good use case for dictionaries?

I’m just interested in your thoughts. Since I don’t have a need for them personally.

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### Author: ![hex](https://discourse.cmake.org/user_avatar/discourse.cmake.org/hex/32/363_2.png) [@hex](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/hex)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2021, 12:45pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/any-plans-for-cmake-dictionaries/3517/3 "2021-06-07T12:45:40Z")

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this discussion might be relevant:

> [@Why not to add \`dict()\` to CMake?](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/why-not-to-add-dict-to-cmake/896):
>
> Hi, It really pains to store and manipulate key-value pairs nowadays in CMake. Why not add dict() command for that? dict(INSERT \<dict\_var\> \<key\> \<value\>) dict(REMOVE \<dict\_var\> \<key\>) dict(GET \<dict\_var\> \<key\> \<output\_variable\>) foreach(key value IN DICTS \<dict\_var\>...) ... Even that minimal commands could help A LOT