[FIX] SortedCollectionFix-sr

Stephan Rudlof squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
Wed Oct 2 03:54:52 UTC 2002


Not to making it a holy grail, but

Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:
> With an eye to producing a new version of SortedCollection,
> I spent a couple of hours yesterday going through all of the
> methods in SortedCollection + all those inherited from OrderedCollection
> + all those inherited from Collection.
> 
> Like other core collection classes, SortedCollection turns out to be,
> um, less than robust and less than consistent.
> 
> My current "favourite" is this:
> 
>     s := #(1 2 4) asSortedCollection.
>     s collect: [:x | x]
> ==> an OrderedCollection(1 2 4)
>     s with: s collect: [:x :y | x]
> ==> a SortedCollection(1 2 4)

>>with:collect: isn't covered by the standard (draft v1.9).

I'm beginning to like it ;-)

And about SortedCollection>>collect: it says:

NCITS J20 DRAFT                             December, 1997
                        215
of ANSI Smalltalk Standard                     revision 1.9

5.7.17.4  Message Refinement:               collect: transformer

     Synopsis
        Answer a new collection constructed by gathering the results of
evaluating transformer with
        each element of the receiver.
     Definition: <collection>
        For each element of the receiver, transformer is evaluated with the
element as the parameter.
        The results of these evaluations are collected into a new collection.
        The elements are traversed in the order specified by the #do:
message for the receiver.
        Unless specifically refined, this message is defined to answer an
objects conforming to the same
        protocol as the receiver.
     Refinement: <SortedCollection>
        Answer a <sequencedCollection>.
     Parameters
        transformer        <monadicValuable> uncaptured
     Return Values
        <sequencedCollection> new
     Errors
        If the elements of the receiver are inappropriate for use as
arguments to transformer.
        If the result of evaluating the transformer is inappropriate for
storage in the collection to be
        returned.

For <SortedCollections> the standard wants to have a <sequencedCollection>,
which may be one of (or conforming to for <string>) <OrderedCollection>,
<Array>, <ByteArray> or <string>.

> 
> Surely they should return the same kind of object!
> 
> This is the underlying reason why
> 
>     s := #(1) asSortedCollection.
>     s + 1
> ==> an OrderedCollection(2)
>     s + #(1)
> ==> a SortedCollection(2)
> 
> which leads to
>     #(1 2 3) asSortedCollection + #(-2 -4 -6)
> ==> a SortedCollection(-1 -2 -3)
> which is in fact NOT sorted (it has a nil sortBlock).
> 
> The simplest solution would seem to be to make #with:collect:
> also return an OrderedCollection.

Sounds reasonable.

Greetings,

Stephan
-- 
Stephan Rudlof (sr at evolgo.de)
   "Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis.
    You can't simply say, 'Today I will be brilliant.'"
    -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3




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