On 1/17/11 2:14 PM, Tomek Sowiński wrote:
Andrei Alexandrescu napisał:
On 1/17/11 1:53 PM, Tomek Sowiński wrote:
Andrei Alexandrescu napisał:
std.range has a function repeat that repeats one value forever. For
example, repeat(42) is an infinite range containing 42, 42, 42,...
The same module also has a function replicate that repeats one value a
specific number of times. In fact, replicate can be expressed as an
overload of repeat, so that's what I just did (not committed yet):
repeat(42, 100) repeats 42 one hundred times, repeat(42) repeats 42
forever. I'll put replicate on the deprecation chute.
So far so good. Now, string has its own repeat. repeat("abc", 2) returns
the string "abcabc".
I want to generalize the functionality in string's repeat and move it
outside std.string. There is an obvious semantic clash here. If you say
repeat("abc", 3) did you mean one string "abcabcabc" or three strings
"abc", "abc", and "abc"?
So we need distinct names for the functions. One repeats one value, the
other repeats a range. Moreover, I'm thinking sometimes you want to
repeat a range lazily, i.e. instead of producing "abcabc" just return a
range that looks like it.
Ideas for a good naming scheme are welcome.
Overload cycle and call it a day?
cycle(r, n) already has a meaning: cycle r for a maximum total of n
elements.
Now I'm confused. The docs say it's an initial index...
Sorry, my bad. You're right. Still, cycle(r, n) has a meaning distinct
from what we might need. Essentially I'm looking for a name for the
function array(take(cycle(range), n * range.length)). That's what
std.string.repeat does currently.
Andrei
