[erlang-questions] Updating elements of a record

[Donald Steven]

I would like to pass a list of some fields of a record to a function to 
update those fields, leaving the other fields as they were.  The list 
will be different for each function call.  For example, one call might 
want to change fields 1, 2 and 7, another call only field 8, another 
call fields 3 and 4.  Of course, each field will have a unique name.  
Each call to updateStatus (let's call it) would look like  
updateStatus(Status, List_of_Fields_to_Update) -> code.

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I can't figure put how to do this economically, without a long 
succession of tests like:

extract fieldnames from list...

case field1name of
         true -> update field1;
         false -> ok % do nothing
end,

repeat for each field...


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Any suggestions?

Many thanks.

Don