As a consequence, complex data structures can be defined as follows:
```
SENDTO alex {
topic = blah,
body = blah blah
}
```
The raw representation of a parsed dict or list is retained for hashing purposes.
It in the sequence of bytes, in the encoded string, trimmed from whitespace at extremities,
that represents the encoded dict or list in that string.
In the complex stance example above, here are the lists and dicts and their raw representation:
- the toplevel term is a list, whose raw representation is the entire encoded string (assuming no whitespace at beginning or end)
- the third term of the list is a dict, whose raw representation starts at `{` and ends at `}`
- the second mapping of the dict is a list, whose raw representation is exactly `blah blah`.
Since strings cannot contain whitespace, they are always equivalent to their raw representation.
## Structural mappings
Terms can be interpreted in a number of different ways, depending on the context:
- RAW: the term is interpreted as its raw encoding (see above)
- STRING: if the term is a string or a list composed exclusively of strings, the term is interpreted as its raw encoding
- VARIANT: if the term is a list whose first item is a string, it is interpreted as a variant with the following properties:
- a discriminator (the first item)
- a value, which is either the second item in case there are only two items, or the list composed of all items starting from the second if there are more than two
- DICT: if the term is a dict, interpret it as such
- LIST: if the term is a string or a dict, interpret it as a list composed of that single term. Otherwise, the term is a list, interpret it as a list of terms.
