[squeak-dev] Re: Collection>>sum implementation

Klaus D. Witzel klaus.witzel at cobss.com
Mon Aug 11 22:56:40 UTC 2008


On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:47:25 +0200, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:

>>>>>> "Jerome" == Jerome Peace <peace_the_dreamer at yahoo.com> writes:
>
> Jerome> You let it tell you:
>
> Jerome> any := myCollection anyone  .
> Jerome> zeroElement := any - any .

Problem here is that #() has no anyone, and so #negated (assuming that sum  
wants to do #+) can also not be used.

> This presumes that anything that implements #+ is also expected
> to implement #-.  Yes, that was also present in the original  
> implementation,
> but a version that doesn't require that would be nice.

Then use an object that for #+ returns a copy of the argument (no I'm not  
mentioning nil :)

  ^ myCollection inject: mysticalObject into: [:a :b | a + b]

It *must* return some mysticalObject when myCollection is empty since one  
cannot know the species of elements which are not in a collection.

This could be called an undefined object which understands #+ ;) clearly  
*not* nil.

Such things can be avoided be passing the desired zero element to  
#sumFromZero: and checking the answer, so that the sender can decide what  
its own zero means for an empty collection.

But if you want #sum rather than #sumFromZero: then for the numerical case  
it sufficies to do

  mySalarySum := myBigSalaryVector sum + 0

, sufficient because mysticalObject, assuming that's what #sum can answer  
for the empty collection, returns a copy of the extra 0 for the extra #+ ;)

And a comment in #sum's method can tell how to use it properly.

/Klaus




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