[erlang-questions] specs for fixed length lists

[Tony Rogvall]

Hi!

On 6 jul 2012, at 18:28, Daniel Goertzen wrote:

> While working with lists of fixed length, I noted that type specification for such lists are conspicuously missing.  For example, the following does not work...
> 
> -spec get_buttons() -> {ok, [boolean(), boolean(), boolean(), boolean()]}.
> 
Try this:

    -type buttons() :: [boolean() | [boolean() | [boolean() | [boolean() | []]]]].

    -spec get_buttons() -> {ok, buttons()}.

    get_buttons() ->
       [true | [false | [true | [false | [] ] ] ] ].

Of course my formatting of the get_buttons return value is intensional. You could write it
as normal [true,false,true,false].

You can of course write it as:

-spec get_buttons() -> {ok,[boolean() | [boolean() | [boolean() | [boolean() | []]]]] }.

Regards

/Tony


> Is there some sneaky way to make this go?  Now I know you would normally use a tuple in this situation, but I will be using the lists module to process this data so I want to stick with lists.
> 
> I would love to see something like this for list specification...
> 
> 
>   List :: list(Type)                        %% Proper list ([]-terminated)
> +       | list(Type, Length)                %% Proper list of fixed size
> +       | tlist(TList)                      %% Proper list specified like a tuple
>         | improper_list(Type1, Type2)       %% Type1=contents, Type2=termination
>         | maybe_improper_list(Type1, Type2) %% Type1 and Type2 as above
> 
>   Tuple :: tuple()                          %% stands for a tuple of any size
>         | {}
>         | {TList}
> 
>   TList :: Type
>         | Type, TList
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Dan.
> 
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