OpenEuphoria

Re: Last Element Notation

• Posted by Robert Craig <rds at RapidEuphoria.com> Sep 17, 2003
• 487 views

Derek Parnell wrote:
> Please, please, reconsider some syntax notational assistance for 
> accessing the last element in a sequence!

OK.
I know it's awkward sometimes.

> The current piece I'm working on often needs to reference the last 
> element of a sequence, and often that is a deeply nested sequence. This 
> causes the program code to become VERY VERY *&%$ at &!* at ^ unreadable. Sure,
>
> I can write some neat routines that do this but I'm trying to avoid the 
> overhead (however bloody slight) of a routine call.
> 
> 
> So that this ...
> 
> FB_Content[lBuffer][lLine] = FB_Content[lBuffer][lLine][1..lCol-1] &
>                              pText &
>                              
> FB_Content[lBuffer][lLine][lCol..length(FB_Content[lBuffer][lLine])]
> 
> can become something like ...
> 
> FB_Content[lBuffer][lLine] = FB_Content[lBuffer][lLine][1..lCol-1] &
>                              pText &
>                              FB_Content[lBuffer][lLine][lCol..$]

Unless someone has a better idea, I think I'll go ahead
with this idea of $ meaning "the index of the last element".
e.g.
    s[1..$]
    s[1..$-1]
    s[$-2]
etc.

I've wanted to do something like this for quite a while,
but I always had the feeling there might be a better way.

> or even better, a couple of built-in routines...
> 
> FB_Content[lBuffer][lLine] = insert(FB_Content[lBuffer][lLine], lCol, 
> pText)
> 
> and to simplify the extremely common idiom of removing the last element...
> 
>         if equal(pText[i][$], '\n') then
>             pText[i] = remove_right(pText[i], 1)
>         end if
> 
> instead of the hard-to-read ...
> 
>         if equal(pText[i][length(pText[i])], '\n') then
>             pText[i] = pText[i][1..length(pText[i])-1]
>         end if
> 
> Its little things like this that make Euphoria so frustrating, when the 
> solution, from the point of view of your customers, is so simple. Please 
> help us.

I'll add some sequence operations like this
as routines in misc.e. I can use your recent contribution file
as a guide.

Thanks,
    Rob Craig
    Rapid Deployment Software
    http://www.RapidEuphoria.com