[erlang-questions] newbie question of if guards

[Thomas Lindgren]

--- Kostis Sagonas <kostis@REDACTED> wrote:

> Chris Rathman wrote:
> > I'm probably missing the obvious, but I can't
> figure out how to use the 
> > value of a function as a condition within an if
> construct.  In the 
> > sqrt_iter function below, the compiler gives me an
> illegal guard error - 
> > where good_enough is a function that returns a
> boolean.
> > 
> > square(X) -> X * X.
> > good_enough(Guess, X) -> abs(square(Guess) - X) <
> 0.001.
> > average(X, Y) -> (X + Y) / 2.
> > improve(Guess, X) -> average(Guess, X / Guess).
> > 
> > sqrt_iter(Guess, X) ->
> >    if
> >       (good_enough(Guess, X)) -> Guess;
> >       true -> sqrt_iter(improve(Guess, X), X)
> >    end.
> 
> Unfortunately, 'if' is one of the dark corners of
> Erlang -- the 
> expressions that can appear as part of 'if' can only
> be guard builtins; 
> not user-defined functions as your good_enough
> function.

Richard Carlsson has suggested a cond-operator, which
from what it seems would permit general expressions in
an if-like setting. Apart from having what I thought
was a nasty definition of variable scoping (fixable, I
expect), this sounded useful.

However, overall I think I'd really prefer simply
permitting user-defined functions in guards instead.
No, they won't have the nice properties of today's
guards (which always terminate with no side-effects),
at least not without some extra work; yes, it will be
worth it anyway, because today we have to emulate this
functionality with case-statements instead ... 

(Oh, I know there are plenty of people who disagree
with this reasoning. Please don't shout :-)

Best,
Thomas



 
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