# {Map, WeakMap, etc}.prototype.getRef(key)

**URL:** <https://es.discourse.group/t/map-weakmap-etc-prototype-getref-key/884>\
**Category:** 💡 Ideas\
**Created:** [July 21, 2021, 4:13pm UTC](https://es.discourse.group/t/map-weakmap-etc-prototype-getref-key/884 "2021-07-21T16:13:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 10

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**Author:** ![theScottyJam](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/es.discourse.group/thescottyjam/32/616_2.png) [@theScottyJam](https://es.discourse.group/u/theScottyJam)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 11:30pm UTC](https://es.discourse.group/t/map-weakmap-etc-prototype-getref-key/884/10 "2022-01-10T23:30:47Z")

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> [@claudiameadows](#):
>
> I could see such userland references getting through [provided they're explicitly denoted somehow so implementations can statically tell them apart without having to do type analysis first](https://github.com/rbuckton/proposal-refs/issues/11).

Did you link to the wrong thing? I don't see the connection to this idea from that thread.

Either way, if we make special syntax to make this sort of thing statically analyzable, we'll probably be back to something similar to [the idea I originally had](https://es.discourse.group/t/overloadable-data-accesor-operator/662), that pre-dated this one, which was to make special syntax for accessing and updating entries of a data structure, so one could do so native language syntax instead of function calls. Which, perhaps that sort of thing would satisfy @graphemecluster's desire as well.

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