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[REBOL] Re: Bug! in assignment to date! values with stacked set-path values

From: g:santilli:tiscalinet:it at: 20-Nov-2002 12:58

Hi Romano, On Monday, November 18, 2002, 10:40:21 PM, you wrote: RPT> Yes you are right and this is what i want to point. I did not want to say that RPT> set-path does not exists in absolute, but that in some situations it is like a RPT> path. I could make an example: a block which, if at some point contains the RPT> word list!, start to behaviour like a list!. Only in this sense i said that it RPT> is not a true datatype!. One could argue that all any-block! types actually share the same implementation internally. This doesn't make them one datatype; parens and blocks differ only in the delimitator, and paths and set-paths differ only in that set-path! ends with a colon. (REBOL is so small because most datatypes share the same implementation...) RPT> or RPT> open: func [file type [block!]][ RPT> if find type 'direct [ ;direct] RPT> if find type 'no-wait [ ;no-wait] RPT> if find type 'binary [ ;binary] Basically, any function that requires a lot of optional arguments would require its own dialect. To make things cleaner, Carl thought of refinements as a common way that can be used by all the functions. Of course, we miss a clean way to propagate refinements, etc. However, I don't think that your proposal of having: f: func [] [[[1]]] f/1 ; == [1] f/1/1 ; == 1 makes really sense out of this simple example. I would find the following really unintuitive: f: func [a b c] [reduce [a b c]] f/1 1 2 3 ; == 1 f/2 1 2 3 ; == 2 ; etc. (Imagine it when you have less trivial arguments, as in a long expression.) I would much prefer: (f 1 2 3)/1 (f 1 2 3)/2 etc. Anyway, the path notation is just a shortcut notation. When you can't use paths, you can use PICK and POKE, so there's no real limitation. Regards, Gabriele. -- Gabriele Santilli <[g--santilli--tiscalinet--it]> -- REBOL Programmer Amigan -- AGI L'Aquila -- REB: http://web.tiscali.it/rebol/index.r