There’s another option, and one we often prefer. Rather than writing code that represents external data in a fixed structure (an instance of a struct or class, for example), just stick it into a key/value data structure (your language might call it a map, hash, dictionary, or even object). On its own this is risky: you lose a lot of the security of knowing just what data you’re working with. So we recommend adding a second layer to this solution: a simple table-driven validation suite that verifies that the map you’ve created contains at least the data you need, in the format you need it. Your
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