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Re: "foreach" loops in IDL [message #64868 is a reply to message #64806]

Tue, 20 January 2009 14:54

rtk
Messages: 22
Registered: September 2008

Junior Member

On Jan 20, 2:11 pm, JD Smith <jdtsmith.nos...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> foreach elem in x
> print, my_function(elem)
> end
>
> When treating a vector as a list, requiring an extra loop variable is
> pure syntactic overhead. Not to mention that the loop variable could
> overflow, could get changed in the body of the loop or, most commonly,
> risks nested sub-loops accidentally re-using the same loop variable.
> None of these happens with a foreach construct.

Exactly! Of course, at this point, we are talking Python:

for elem in x:
print my_function(elem)

Lists are a natural extension/complement to IDL's arrays. Then, once
you have lists, you will naturally want higher-order functions to
operate on those lists. Lists would add great power to IDL but
perhaps if people are not familiar with lists they will not appreciate
what lists have to offer. To prove my point, look at what happened
with Python. It supports lists out of the box but folks added
powerful array processing via the numpy package. Well, IDL is just
the opposite. It has powerful array processing already, now it just
needs lists.

The package I referenced above has a list DLM that is quite useful on
its own. It supports all IDL data types except structures. A truly
integrated version would naturally add helpful syntax and support all
data types.

Ron
(Disclaimer: while I do work for ITT VIS, these opinions are my own
and should not be thought of as those of ITT VIS...)

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[Message index]

		"foreach" loops in IDL By: alaniwiusenet on Fri, 16 January 2009 10:30
		Re: "foreach" loops in IDL By: Giorgio on Fri, 23 January 2009 15:39
		Re: "foreach" loops in IDL By: Vince Hradil on Tue, 20 January 2009 14:57
		Re: "foreach" loops in IDL By: rtk on Tue, 20 January 2009 14:54

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