Association list

In computer programming and particularly in Lisp, an association list, often referred to as an alist, is a linked list in which each list element (or node) comprises a key and a value. The association list is said to associate the value with the key. In order to find the value associated with a given key, each element of the list is searched in turn, starting at the head, until the key is found. Duplicate keys that appear later in the list are ignored. It is a simple way of implementing an associative array.