[erlang-questions] Erlang elseif

[Bengt Kleberg]

Greetings,

Despite the inefficiency I would use elseif3/1 unless profiling shows 
that it is a problem.
Then I would switch to elseif2/2, and move the lists:member/2 tests 
around until the normal workload got treated as efficiently as possible.


bengt
Those were the days...
    EPO guidelines 1978: "If the contribution to the known art resides
    solely in a computer program then the subject matter is not
    patentable in whatever manner it may be presented in the claims."


On 2008-11-20 09:41, kdronnqvist@REDACTED wrote:
> Hi everyone I just joined the list and tried to search for information 
> about this but I could not find anything that answered my question. The 
> thing is that I want a general way to branch the execution of my code 
> based on the result on an expression. Very similar to how if works but I 
> want to be able to test expressions and not only guards. If you're 
> thinking "then you have case" now look below at function elseif2() and 
> you'll see my point.
> 
> I wrote a couple of examples how to solve this but none of them really 
> feels right, the logic in what I'm trying to do is really REALLY not 
> that complicated. The functions takes an argument and prints something 
> based on what list the argument is a member of (if any). Like this:
> 
> 42> e:elseif4($Q).
> Member of capital
> 
> 
> I would appreciate any input on this, even if it means you're bashing 
> all my examples below :-)
> 
> BR,
> Daniel Rönnqvist
> 
> --- Source code for my test module: ----
> 
> -module(e).
> 
> -export([elseif1/1,elseif2/1,elseif3/1,elseif4/1]).
> 
> -define(CAPS, "QWERTY").
> -define(SMALL, "qwerty").
> -define(NUMS, "123456").
> 
> %% The wierd not-so-Erlang way
> elseif1(A) ->
>     lists:member(A,?CAPS)
>         andalso begin
>                     io:format("Member of capital\n"),
>                     true
>                 end
>         orelse
>         lists:member(A,?SMALL)
>         andalso begin
>                     io:format("Member of small\n"),
>                     true
>                 end
>         orelse
>         lists:member(A,?NUMS)
>         andalso begin
>                     io:format("Member of nums\n"),
>                     true
>                 end
>         orelse
>         io:format("Not a member").
> 
> %% The no-good nested case way
> elseif2(A) ->
>     case lists:member(A,?CAPS) of
>         true ->
>             io:format("Member of capital\n");
>         false ->
>             case lists:member(A,?SMALL) of
>                 true ->
>                     io:format("Member of small\n");
>                 false ->
>                     case lists:member(A,?NUMS) of
>                         true ->
>                             io:format("Member of nums\n");
>                         false ->
>                             io:format("Not a member\n")
>                     end
>             end
>     end.
> 
> %% One utterly inefficient tuple way   
> elseif3(A) ->
>     case {lists:member(A,?CAPS),
>           lists:member(A,?SMALL),
>           lists:member(A,?NUMS)} of
>         {true,false,false} ->
>             io:format("Member of capital\n");
>         {false,true,false} ->
>             io:format("Member of small\n");
>         {false,false,true} ->
>             io:format("Member of nums\n");
>         _ ->
>             io:format("Not a member\n")
>     end.
> 
> %% The list comprehension way
> elseif4(A) ->
>     case [begin
>               {Name,_} = X,
>               Name
>           end
>           || X <- [{caps, ?CAPS},
>                    {small, ?SMALL},
>                    {nums, ?NUMS}],
>              begin
>                  {_,List} = X,
>                  lists:member(A,List)
>              end] of
>         [caps] ->
>             io:format("Member of capital\n");
>         [small] ->
>             io:format("Member of small\n");
>         [nums] ->
>             io:format("Member of nums\n");
>         _ ->
>             io:format("Not a member\n")
>     end.
> 
> 
> 
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