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fixed length arrays as types
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| Date: | -- (:) |
| From: | Sven LUTHER <luther@d...> |
| Subject: | Re: fixed length arrays as types |
On Sat, Nov 04, 2000 at 07:06:35PM -0800, Chris Hecker wrote:
>
> Is there any way to do this:
>
> type vector3 = [| float; float; float |];
>
> Basically, I want an array of a given length to be a given type, so I can use the type system to check add_vector3 rather than throwing if the arrays don't match. I know I can make records {x:float, y:float} but I'd like it to be parameterizable at compile time.
>
> Something like this C++:
>
> template <int unsigned N> class vector { float a[N]; };
> vector<3> add( vector<3> v1, vector<3> v2 );
>
> vector<3> v3 = add(vector<3>(),vector<3>()); // works
> vector<3> v4 = add(vector<5>(),vector<3>()); // type error (note v<5>
>
> I guess the higher level question is whether scalar constants can be part of the type signature like they can be in C++. Or, the related but different question is whether there's a way to differentiate between "float a[]" (or "float *a"), the variable length array type, and "float a[3]", a fixed length array type, which C++ doesn't do, but it lets you wrap the ideas in template classes which do allow you to represent this to the type system.
Try using lists,
Friendly,
Sven Luther