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Map-Set vs. Map-Merge

The difference between map-set and map-merge? Almost nothing.

When I first heard that Sass 3.3 had no map-set function, I was confused. Why force me to create a map, and then merge it? That sounds like two steps to accomplish one simple task! But that’s not the case. Map-merge is a much more powerful function, and using it to set a key in an existing map is quite straight-forward. In fact, I couldn’t come up with a map-set function that shaved off more than a few keystrokes. Here’s the comparison:

// a map!
$map: (
  1: hello,
  2: world,
);

// a map-set function (not included with Sass)
@function map-set($map, $key, $value) {
  $new: (
    $key: $value,
  );
  @return map-merge($map, $new);
}

// the difference between map-set and map-merge: almost nothing.
$merge: map-merge(
  $map,
  (
    2: New York,
  )
);
$set: map-set($map, 2, New York);

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