why container object in pod yaml file has "list value" rather than a "map value"

Question

In the pod creation yaml files or in the deployment yaml files in kubernetes, why Containers key has a list value - name: memory-demo-ctr rather than we can simply provide the map value name: memory-demo-ctr (why we're providing - symbol)?

I tried looking at over the web but couldn't find a solution.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: memory-demo
  namespace: mem-example
spec:
  containers:
  - name: memory-demo-ctr
    image: polinux/stress

Answer 1

Pod is capable of running multiple containers. That's the reason containers object is a list instead of map.

kind: Pod
...
spec:
  containers:
  - name: busybox
    image: busybox:latest
  - name: nginx
    image: nginx:1.7.9
  - name: redis
    image: redis:latest

If containers is a map object, you cannot write a configuration file to run multiple containers inside a pod. I hope this answer solved your doubt.