Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Too many arguments

I was not able to find a method with a higher number of arguments
than Travis found. But I once saw an image with long methods
for Collection(class)>>with: keyword's. They extended the class side
messes of Collection like this:


Collection(class)>>with:with:with:
Collection(class)>>with:with:with:with:
Collection(class)>>with:with:with:with:with:
...


So you could write

OrderedCollection with: $H with: $E with: $L with: $L with: $O

I guess they didnt know about Collection(class)>>withAll: which allows
you to write:


OrderedCollection withAll: #($H $E $L $L $O)
at

3 comments:

  1. Kerrin8:34 AM

    (Kerrin's Husband, Travis Griggs, said...)

    I've added the 5 argument with: myself. Though I never really needed 6. Seems to be something magical about 5. What would be really cool of course is this solution. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Diego Fernández9:26 AM

    The #with:with:with:with: methods are for convenience, in fact all of them use #withAll:
    If with:with: is not declared in Collection to write something like this:
    c := OrderedCollection
    with: MyClass new
    with: (MyOtherClass for: 'bla').

    You must do something like this:
    c := OrderecCollection new
    add: MyClass new;
    add: (MyOtherClass for: 'bla');
    yourself.

    Or for an Array:
    c := Array new: 2.
    c at: 1 put: MyClass new.
    c at: 2 put: (MyOtherClass for: 'bla').

    Not a big difference, but is convenient. Remember that you can't create an Array like this:
    #(MyClass new)
    Because this gives an array with two symbols. Squeak has a special notation, I think that is #{} (but is not portable to other smalltalks)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Andrés8:13 PM

    Since strings are collections too, you can also write

    OrderedCollection withAll: 'Hello'

    ReplyDelete