[
Lists Home |
Date Index |
Thread Index
]
On Tue, 13 May 2003 11:53:34 -0400
John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
> Amelia A Lewis scripsit:
> > For the type gronk:
> >
> > Given a string, the gronk type specification allows you to determine
> > if this is a representation of a valid instance of type gronk.
> >
> > boolean gronk(xmlstring);
> >
> > Given two strings known to be of type gronk (see preceding
> > function), return-1 0 1 to indicate whether the first is smaller
> > than, equal to, or larger than the second (an equality function,
> > plus a bit).
> >
> > [-1,0,1] gronkSort(xmlstring, xmlstring);
>
> The first is of course the minimum required, but the second assumes
> the type has a natural total ordering, which may not be the case. The
> RNG datatype interface requires only that we be able to say, for two
> strings, whether they are distinguishable or indistinguishable with
> respect to the type: thus 01 and 1 are distinguishable as strings,
> but indistinguishable as integers.
Urk. Right. Bob Foster points out, in another email in this thread,
that there are ways of asking the plugin "are you sortable?". But
clearly my proposal here is too facile.
Amy!
--
Amelia A. Lewis amyzing {at} talsever.com
But pain ... seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life.
Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on
regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life
in addition to the pain?
-- Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan [Lois McMasters Bujold, "Barrayar"]
|
