multiple patterns per clause?

[Bengt Kleberg]

On 2006-08-28 16:47, Yariv Sadan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Is it possible to have a single clause match multiple patterns in Erlang?

no. use functions for that.


> Specifically, I want to test if a list has a number of different
> prefixes, all of which would lead to the same expression.

which would be:
case is_prefix_i_want( L ) of
true -> ok;
false -> error
end

is_prefix_i_want([$f|_] ) -> true;
is_prefix_i_want([$x|_] ) -> true;
is_prefix_i_want([$a, $b, $c|_] ) -> true;
is_prefix_i_want( _ ) -> false.


this was an attempt to match your (pseudo)code.
in this particular case it would have been better to use:

prefix_i_want( L )

prefix_i_want([$f|_] ) -> ok;
prefix_i_want([$x|_] ) -> ok;
prefix_i_want([$a, $b, $c|_] ) -> ok;
prefix_i_want(_ ) -> error.

but i guess that is not really what you want :-)


bengt
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