[erlang-questions] Guards on assignment (i.e. assertions)

[Garrett Smith]

Right, that's fine. It's even pretty readable. Though when it fails,
you just get an ambiguous "exception error: no true branch found when
evaluating an if expression", which is why I prefer the case
statement.

Both case and if are  a bit verbose. A simpler syntax would, I think,
encourage this practice.

On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 2:34 PM, David Mercer <dmercer@REDACTED> wrote:
> That seems like a legitimate use of the "if" keyword.
>
>        A = if B > C -> B end
>
> Or
>
>        if B > C -> A = B end
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: erlang-questions@REDACTED [mailto:erlang-questions@REDACTED] On
>> Behalf Of Garrett Smith
>> Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 2:00 PM
>> To: Erlang Questions
>> Subject: [erlang-questions] Guards on assignment (i.e. assertions)
>>
>> In most cases, assertions come "free" in Erlang in guards and pattern
>> matching. There are cases though where I'd like to apply a guard a
>> statement like this:
>>
>>   A = B when B > C
>>
>> I currently do this:
>>
>>   A = case B of ValidB when ValidB > C -> ValidB end
>>
>> or, a simpler form (but the error message on failure isn't as clear):
>>
>>   A = if B > C -> B end
>>
>> There are other ways as well, e.g. using functions, etc. but I like
>> the first form.
>>
>> I'm wondering how others implement basic assertions on assignments. I
>> think if the first form were supported by the language, I'd use the
>> "assert" pattern and my code would be better for it.
>>
>> Garrett
>>
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>
>