So now all I'd like in Erlang is...

Robert Virding robert.virding@REDACTED
Mon Feb 23 23:00:33 CET 2004


letrec, that's what you need, letrec. If we are going functional we might as
well do it properly.

Robert

P.S. The we add let as well and add proper variable scoping. No :-)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Carlsson" <richardc@REDACTED>
To: "Joachim Durchholz" <joachim.durchholz@REDACTED>
Cc: <erlang-questions@REDACTED>
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 1:25 PM
Subject: Re: So now all I'd like in Erlang is...


>
> On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Joachim Durchholz wrote:
>
> > The reference to Fact is compiled into code that says: "retrieve
> > whatever is assigned to the name 'Fact'; crash if Fact is either
> > unassigned or assigned something other than a fun; evaluate parameters
> > and run the fun with them."
>
> So you want dynamic binding, like in certain Lisp dialects?
>
> The problem with that is of course that if someone passes such a
> fun into some other context where Fact is bound to something
> completely different (like an integer), it dies horribly.
>
> > > And that's just self-references.  Mutually recursive funs are even
more,
> > > uh, fun :)  They can be done, of course, but they're far from
pleasant.
> >
> > If you handle them in Y-combinator style, then yes... but it's
> > straightforward: just add all the functions to the parameter list.
>
> Yes, you can do it like this:
>
>   Odd0 = fun (0, Odd, Even) ->
>                false;
>              (N, Odd, Even) ->
>                Even(N-1, Odd, Even)
>          end,
>   Even0 = fun (0, Odd, Even) ->
>                 true;
>               (N, Odd, Even) ->
>                 Odd(N-1, Odd, Even)
>           end,
>   Odd = fun (N) -> Odd0(N, Odd0, Even0) end,
>   Even = fun (N) -> Even0(N, Odd0, Even0) end
>
> or with a single fun, like this:
>
>   F = fun ({odd, 0}, F) ->
>               false;
>           ({odd, N}, F) ->
>               F({even, N-1}, F);
>           ({even, 0}, F) ->
>               true;
>           ({even, N}, F) ->
>               F({odd, N-1}, F)
>       end,
>   Odd = fun (N) -> F({odd, N}, F) end,
>   Even = fun (N) -> F({even, N}, F) end
>
> (It's not _that_ painful...)
>
> /Richard
>
>
> Richard Carlsson (richardc@REDACTED)   (This space intentionally left
blank.)
> E-mail: Richard.Carlsson@REDACTED WWW: http://user.it.uu.se/~richardc/
>  "Having users is like optimization: the wise course is to delay it."
>    -- Paul Graham
>




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