Relation to NamedTuples

Julia's Base has NamedTuples in v0.7+. They are constructed as:

p = (σ = 10.0,ρ = 28.0,β = 8/3)

and they support p[1] and p.σ as well. The LVector, SLVector, LArray and SLArray constructors also support named tuples as their arguments:

julia> LVector((a=1, b=2))
2-element LArray{Int64,1,(:a, :b)}:
 1
 2

julia> SLVector((a=1, b=2))
2-element SLArray{Tuple{2},1,(:a, :b),Int64}:
 1
 2

julia> LArray((2,2), (a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4))
2×2 LArray{Int64,2,(:a, :b, :c, :d)}:
 1  3
 2  4

julia> SLArray{Tuple{2,2}}((a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4))
2×2 SLArray{Tuple{2,2},2,(:a, :b, :c, :d),Int64}:
 1  3
 2  4

Converting to a named tuple from a labelled array x is available using convert(NamedTuple, x). Furthermore, pairs(x) creates an iterator that is functionally the same as pairs(convert(NamedTuple, x)), yielding :label => x.label for each label of the array.

There are some crucial differences between a labelled array and a named tuple. Labelled arrays can have any dimensions while named tuples are always 1D. A named tuple can have different types on each element, while an SLArray can only have one element type and furthermore it has the actions of a static vector. As a result SLArray has less element type information, which improves compilation speed while giving more vector functionality than a NamedTuple. LArray also only has a single element type and, unlike a named tuple, is mutable.