[newbie] Complex boolean value?

Richard A. O'Keefe ok at atlas.otago.ac.nz
Sun Jun 17 23:38:01 UTC 2001


	Sorry about my stupid question but I started to experiment with Squeak 
	yesterday and when I wanted to come up with Boolean expression to check 
	if any of the 3 conditions is true, I came up with this:
	
	((value < 1 or: [value > x1]) or: [value > x2])
		ifTrue: [self error: 'Invalid value'].
	
(1) Rearrange like this:

    (value < 1 or: [value > x1 or: [value > x2]])
	ifTrue: [self error: 'Invalid value'].

(2) v > x OR v > y if and only if v > max(x,y), so

    (value < 1 or: [value > (x1 max: x2)])
	ifTrue: [self error: 'Invalid value'].

(3) Use #between:and#

    (value between: 1 and: (x1 max: x2))
	ifFalse: [self error: 'Invalid value'].

(4) The parenthesis count could be reduced still further if min: and max:
    were operators instead of keywords.  So stick
	/\ x	^self min: x
	\/ x	^self max: x
    in Magnitude, and you can write

    (value between: 1 and: x1 \/ x2)
	ifFalse: [self error: 'Invalid value'].

I rather like /\ and \/, having once used a C compiler that supported them.
(Mind you, I had to fix a few bugs in the code generator before I could
actually _use_ these operators...)  However, since #min: and #max: already
exist, (4) would make the code *less* readable by other Smalltalkers, so I
don't actually recommend doing it.

If I were you, I'd go with (3).





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