Matching elements of records

[David Hopwood]

Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:

> I note that in the other functional programming languages I use,
> *only* the
> 	<variable> = <pattern>
> 	<variable> @ <pattern>
> 	<variable> as <pattern>
> form is available, not the "reversed" form with the variable on the right.
> I would find the "reversed" form rather confusing and unpleasant to read.

The general case (supported by several languages including Oz and E, for
example) is

         <pattern1> = <pattern2>

which is handled by attempting to unify (in the constraint logic
programming sense) <pattern1> with <pattern2>, where either or both
can contain variables. This is equivalent to

         <pattern2> = <pattern1>

and so it makes no sense to disallow the "reversed" special case.

-- 
David Hopwood <david.nospam.hopwood@REDACTED>