Re: [Caml-list] suggestion for record pattern matching and construction

[brogoff@speakeasy.net]

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, Olivier Andrieu wrote:
>  Eric C. Cooper [Wednesday 10 September 2003] :
>  >
>  > I find that I am often writing code like
>  >     { field1 = field1; field2 = field2; field3 = field3 }
>  > when matching and constructing records.  I guess it's because thinking
>  > up good names for the record fields is nontrivial and having similar
>  > but different names for the bindings just bothers me.
>  > 
>  > How about allowing syntax like that used for labels:
>  >     { ~field1; ~field2; ~field3 }
>  > would expand into the above, in both pattern matching and construction
>  > contexts.
> 
> I have a camlp4 extension that does exactly this (well, without 
> the ~). Also, you can put the module path before the { instead of
> having to repeat it for each field. So :
> 
>   Mod1.Mod2.{ field1; field2 } 
> 
> is expanded into
> 
>   { Mod1.Mod2.field1 = field1 ; Mod1.Mod2.field2 = field2 }

I like it, though I can even see an argument for the ~ syntax Eric suggests as 
it dovetails nicely with labels. I especially like your sugar which reduces 
the number of module qualifications. 

Is there any chance we could see a feature like this in the core language 
syntax? Especially since 3.07, I am more inclined to use "private" record 
types a lot more, and since I'd also like to minimize my use of open, this 
lighter syntax makes it even more appealing. 

-- Brian


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