[erlang-patches] Add lists:init/1 - got tired of implementing it

[Hans Svensson]

Hi,

The most typical use case, for me, is when using either filename:split 
or string :tokens to create a list of elements where the last element is 
not needed.  I.e. this is in some sense a generalization of 
filename:dirname/1 (which I bet has something like this in its 
implementation...)
I have also seen this exact use is in lib/ssh/src/ssh_sftpd.erl in otp ;-)

Also, when handling a failing test case, which consists of a list of 
commands, it is useful to treat the successful commands (init(Commands)) 
differently from the failing command (last(Commands)).

I have personally never missed the 'remove N last elements'-function.

Cheers,

Hans


On 2013-04-30 12:05, Siri Hansen wrote:
> We haven't yet made any decision regarding this patch, but we have had 
> some discussions in the team and we are not totally convinced about 
> the general need for this function. Thus we would appreciate some 
> input from the list.
>
> So - disregarding the name and the implementation for a second - is 
> this functionality a good addition to the lists module? Is it often 
> needed?
>
> If so, would it be even better to do a more general version which 
> removes the N last elements from the list?
>
> Hans, could you also possibly describe some of your use cases?
>
> Regards
> siri@REDACTED
>
>
> 2013/4/29 Fredrik <fredrik@REDACTED <mailto:fredrik@REDACTED>>
>
>     On 04/25/2013 05:12 PM, Hans Svensson wrote:
>
>         git fetch git://github.com/hanssv/otp.git
>         <http://github.com/hanssv/otp.git> add_init_to_lists
>
>     Fetched, it is currently located in the 'pu' branch.
>     A review process has started.
>     Thanks,
>
>     -- 
>
>     BR Fredrik Gustafsson
>     Erlang OTP Team
>
>
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