submitted 2 weeks ago by soc@programming.dev to c/programming_languages@programming.dev

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A design that subsumes the various syntactic forms of

if statements/expressions
switch on values
match on patterns and pattern guards
if-let constructs

and scales from simple one-liners to complex pattern matches.

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[-] considerealization@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago

Isn't match already such a unified expression? Especially once you extend matches with guards, it seems to me like this is a solved problem. E.g.,

if x == 1.0 then "a" else "x"

match x with | 1.0 -> "a" | _ -> "b"

and

if x ==
  1.0 then "a"
  2.0 then "b"
      else "z"

is (and IMO reads much clearer this way):

match x with
| 1.0 -> "a"
| 2.0 -> "b"
| _ -> "z"

and

if xs
  .isEmpty then "e"
  .contains(0,0) then "n"
  else "z"

match () with
| _ when x.isEmpty -> "e"
| _ when x.contains(0,0) then "n"
| _ -> "z"

and

if person
  .age < 18                 then 18
  is Person("Alice", _)     then person.age
  is Person("Bob", let age) then age
                            else -1

match person with
| _ when person.age < 10 -> 18
| Person("Alice", _) -> person.age
| Person("bob", age) -> age
| _ -> -1

Finally,

if person is Person("Alice", let age) then age else -1

Would be the simple

match person with
| Person("Alice", age) -> age
| _ -> -1

Seems to me this reads more clear in general and has less magic. Plus, it's already implemented in a bunch of languages.

this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025

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Programming Languages

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