[erlang-questions] Dict size in guards

[Tony Rogvall]

On 11 feb 2011, at 03.02, Richard O'Keefe wrote:

> 
> On 11/02/2011, at 5:05 AM, Alessandro Sivieri wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> is there a good reason for not allowing dict:size() in guards?
> 
> Yes.  Who knows what dict:size() actually does?
> Guards cannot and should not call functions.
> 
>> I mean, it
>> looks exactly like length() for lists, in theory (of course, their
>> implementations are different).
> 
> The inclusion of length/1 in guard tests has always been more than
> a bit dodgy.  It's better taste to avoid it.  Not least because
> if you do something like
> 
> f(L)
>   when length(L) > 10 -> long_case(L);
>   when length(L) >  5 -> medium_case(L);
>   when true           -> short_case(L).
> 
> doesn't do what people often think.  I've several times been
> caught by that.
> 
> f(L) ->
>    N = length(L),
>    if N > 10 -> long_case(L)
>     ; N >  5 -> medium_case(L)
>     ; true   -> short_case(L)
>    end.
> 
> is safer and only evaluates the length once.
> 
One way of avoiding length in this case is of course:

f(L) ->
    case L of
	[_,_,_,_,_,_,_,_,_,_,_|_] ->
	    long_case(L);
	[_,_,_,_,_,_|_] ->
	    medium_case(L);
	_ ->
	    short_case(L)
    end.

May be the compiler could take care of the "simple" cases like this, and then
issue a warning if it can not do the  transformation ?

BTW.
The compiler needs a fix to handle this transform in general. It uses way to many registers.
Maybe it's a problem with compiling guards? 


> A style warning "length/1 in guard" would be nice to have.
> 
> 
> 
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"Have run Make so many times I dunno what's installed anymore"