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Re: Problems with field initialization: Proposal

This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 76 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 76 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.



Andre van Tonder <andre@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> I would like to understand this remark better.  For example, the Java 
> constructor paradigm seems more similar to my suggestion than the draft.

I would think the opposite is true:

(define-type foo (a b)
  (fields
    (a (foo-a) a)
    (b (foo-b) b)))

class Foo {
  int a;
  int b;


  Foo(int a, int b) {
    this.a = a;
    this.b = b;
  }
}

Note that, in the constructor, things occur in the exact same order as
in DEFINE-TYPE, and that the association between construction
procedure arguments and fields is by name rather than by position.

> How would you suggest handling, within the current spec, the following:
>
>   (define-type unit-vector
>     (constructor (lambda (x y z)
>                    (let ((length (+ (* x x) (* y y) (* z z))))
>                      (values (/ x length)
>                              (/ y length)
>                              (/ z length)))))
>     (fields x y z))
>
> or
>
>   (define-type rational
>     (constructor (lambda (x y)
>                    (let ((common (gcd x y)))
>                      (values (/ x common)
>                              (/ y common)))))
>     (fields num denom))
>
>
> If the spec cannot handle these common cases, is there a clear rationale why 
> not, and why the distinction is not arbitrary?

Primarily because these didn't occur in the concrete examples we
looked at.  (Thanks for writing them up!)  Note that I didn't say the
present spec could handle them straightforwardly, but rather that it
could straightforwardly be generalized to handle them.  One might
imagine two hypothetical generalizations:

- In a field spec, allowing the field names prior to the spec to be
  used as variables in the initialization expression like so:

(define-type foo (a)
  (fields
    (a (foo-a) a)
    (b (foo-b) (f a))))

  (Doesn't cut your mustard, but may cut someone else's.)

- Add a LET clause that introduces a binding into the constructor like
  so:

(define-type rational (x y)
  (let ((common (gcd x y))))
  (fields
    (num   (rational-num)    (/ x common))
    (denom (rational-denom)  (/ y common))))

 (Possibly making repeated LET clauses nest.)

-- 
Cheers =8-} Mike
Friede, Völkerverständigung und überhaupt blabla