🚀 go-pugleaf

It has taken me a while to realize that a reference to a collection of objects is not the same as an array. In many ways, it looks, acts and quacks like an array but array methods won't work with one. Today, I wanted to do this:

myTarget = app.documents[0].paragraphStyles.shift();

in order to be able to get what I thought of as an array of references to all the paragraph styles except No paragraph style. But it doesn't work because app.documents[0].paragraphStyles is not an array, it's an object; a plural object.

My question is: what is the correct terminology? plural object is a hell of a circumlocution, but it might be strictly correct. It even acts like a plural object when there's only one of them.

I've been wanting to use the word "collection" to describe one of these, but that might be a reserved word meaning something else. "Collection" doesn't appear in the index of the JavaScript Reference at DevEdge, so maybe it is a good word. What do others call these array-like things that don't take array methods?

Dave