Yes, you could of course use map for the simple example in the post. I didn't want to make it more complicated than necessary for a post- If you want a more complicated example that can't be done with map, here's a function that removes pairs of identical items from a list:
(def rem-pairs ((a . (b . c)))
(when a
(if (is a b) (rem-pairs c)
(cons a (rem-pairs:cons b c)))))
arc> (rem-pairs '(d r b s d d e w))
(d r b s e w)
This function, also, will work in every case but break when there are nils in the list)
For everything else, there's pattern matching (on nex-3's arc-wiki).
(pat-match:def rem-pairs
( (a b . c) )
(if (is a b)
(rem-pairs c)
`(,a ,@(rem-pairs `(,b ,@c))))
( (a) )
`(,a)
( () ) ())
Possibly I can make it such that you can even say something like (a ,(b (is a b)) . c) in the pattern guard, but it seems a semi-hard problem.
;does not work in current version yet!!
(pat-match:def rem-pairs
( (a ,(b (is a b)) . c) )
(rem-pairs c)
( (a . as) )
`(,a ,@(rem-pairs as))
( () )
() )
I'm still not seeing the win of pattern matching here, I'm afraid. This is actually longer than the standard definition using car/cdr. Maybe it's better for more complicated things, I suppose, but that'll defeat the purpose because it wouldn't be legible at that point (as if it is now).
The big win is that it's assuredly correct, and you don't have to mess around dealing with car and cdr. Crossref def varline in app.arc : arc1 had a bug there because it's ridiculously easy to make a mistake dealing with car and cdr. If you can't find the bug, try rewriting the code into pattern-matching form.
Well, I'd be happy with that, except it doesn't work- There's no way to know with or.a.b if you're at the end of the list or if there's just a nil as a last item in the list. Notice the missing item here:
Ah, I see. When destructuring the arguments, if the last argument is nil it is equivalent to not being an item. ie:
arc> (= a '(1 2 nil))
(1 2 nil)
has a last destructuring bind of (nil . nil) so 'a would be nil and 'b would be nil, making my code not work and making it impossible to differentiate between the end of the list and the list with a last item of nil.
This code shares almost the same amount of brevity, though I believe it defeats the purpose of what you were trying to do with the destructuring bind (make the calls to car/cdr disappear).
I don't believe your solution is the right thing to do because it wouldn't make sense for the car to be optional and then not force the cdr to be optional. I do not believe an optimal destructuring solution exists that could improve on the brevity of the original car/cdr solution.
