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First time posting and I am having some difficulty understanding groovy script arrays? (not sure if they are list, arrays, or maps). I have typically coded in PHP and am used to associating PHP multidimensional arrays as a (key => value) association. I am not sure if I am overlooking that flexibility in Groovy. It seems like you either have to pick either a map/array combo or a list.

What I am trying to accomplish is I have another associative array that is static I would like to have associated with a key -> value. (e.g. 1 - Tim, 2 - Greg, 3 - Bob, etc...)
I have another associative array that is total dynamic. This needs to be nested within the associative array that I stated above because in this list it will contain task information that the current user has worked on. (e.g. under Tim there he might have worked on 3 unrelated task at a different time and the statuses of those task might vary. So this should correlate to something like this [Task 1, 3/6/19, Completed Task], [Task 2, 3/5/19, Completed Task], [Task 3, 2/5/19, In Progress Task]. Someone named Greg might have instead 4 task.

So my question is what is the best data structure to use for this? How do I add data to this data structure effectively?

I'm sorry if these seem like bare-bones basic questions. Again, I'm new to Groovy.

Map model=[:]

List names=['Tim','Greg','Bob']

names?.each name->
 //dynamically call something that returns a list
 // model."$name"= getSomeList(name)


//get a list assign it the above list maybe something like this
// List someTasks = ['task1','task2'] 
// model."$name"= someTasks
//or shorter
// model."$name"= ['task1','task2'] 

// 1 element multi element list
 if (name=='Bob') 
 model."$name"= ['task1']
 else 
 model."$name"= ['task1','task2'] 
 


//This iterates through map and its value being another iteration
model?.each key,value ->
 println "working on $key" 
 value?.each v-
 println "$key has task $v"
 

Try some of above may help you understand it better and yes you can use <<

Map model=[:]
model << ['bob':['task1']]
model << ['Greg':['task1','task2']]

You could either map like latter or above through an iteration further lists/maps within that list so for example:

model << ['Greg':[ 
 'task1' : ['do thing1','do thing2'], 
 'task2': [ 'do xyz', 'do abc'] 
 ]
 ]

//This iterates through map and its value being another map with an iteration
model?.each key,value ->
 println "working on $key" 
 value?.each k, v->
 println "$key has task $k"
 v?.each vv ->
 println "$key has task $k which needs to do $vv"
 
 

Using collect you could really simply all the each iterations which is a lot more verbose, using collection you could make it into one line:

names?.collect[it:getSomeList(it)] 

//sometimes you need to flatten in this case I dont think you would
names?.collect[it:seriesHotelList(it)]?.flatten() 

List getSomeList(String name) 
 return ['task1','task2']

The basic data structures that are key/value lookups are just Java Maps (usually the LinkedHashMap implementation in Groovy). Your first-level association seems to be something like a Map<Integer, Employee>. The nested one that you are calling "total dynamic" seems instead to really be a structured class, and you definitely should learn how Java/Groovy classes work. This seems to be something like what you're looking for:

class Employee 
 int employeeId
 String name
 List<Task> tasks


enum TaskStatus 
 PENDING,
 IN_PROGRESS,
 COMPLETED


class Task 
 int taskNumber
 LocalDate date // java.time.LocalDate
 TaskStatus status

By the way, Groovy is a great language and my preferred JVM language, but it's better to make sure you understand the basics first. I recommend using @CompileStatic on all of your classes whenever possible and making sure you understand any cases where you can't use it. This will help to prevent errors and missteps as you learn.