PEP 308: an additional "select/case" survey option

[Steven Cummings]

Will this syntax be pursued separately if it does not become the lead nomination for PEP308? I wouldn't mind seeing both this switch-case syntax in addition to what I've already selected in the PEP308 vote.

/S

"Clark C. Evans" <cce at clarkevans.com> wrote:

>After some encouragement by Raymond, I'd like to add one more
>item to the survey, if you like what follows perhaps you can
>even *change* your vote (Raymond?) to include:
>
>   Q accept  switch-case
>   Z deny    everything else!
>
>Dedication:
>
>   To those who hate the terinary operator beacuse it isn't pythonic...
>
>Background:
>
>   After looking over much of my Python source code, I found that 
>   where I thought I needed a terinary operator, I ended
>   up taking one of two paths:
>
>      if   0 == quantity:  exit = 'no exit'
>      elif 1 == quantity: exit = 'a door'
>      else: exit = '%s doors' % quantity
>      
>   Or, the more concise mapping-idiom:
>
>     exit = { 0: 'no exit',
>              1: 'a door' }.get(quantity,
>             '%s doors' % quantity)
>
>   The latter construct has two advantages over the if/else
>   statement level solution:
>
>     1. It's clear that I'm making an assignment to exit;
>        in effect the "exit =" isn't duplicated and this
>        aids in authoring/maintenance/reading.
>
>     2. The ugly '== quantity' isn't duplicated for each line,
>        once again improving maintenance.
>
>
>   However, the mapping-idiom has three problems:
>
>     1. The conditional switch isn't exactly "obvious" here
>        unless you're a Python vetran, this hurts in the 
>        maintenance arena; besides the 'else' case is ugly.
>
>     2. It doesn't short-circut cleanly, to do a short-circut
>        you need to use lambda's... ick; further, it results in
>        the construction of a mapping which may not really help
>        out optimizations.
>
>     3. It really doesn't facilitate the use whitespace/indentation
>        to re-inforce a visual representation of the program's 
>        structure.
>
>Philosophy:
>
>   The whole rationale for this construct is to reduce data 
>   duplication (both the assignments and conditional tests)
>   to increase maintenance.
>
>   The goal is not to save on vertical screen realistate by
>   enabling multi-line constructs to be "jumbled" into a 
>   single line.   It seems that many people are asking for the
>   terinary option for the latter.  
>
>   Instead, this proposal seeks to engage Python's unique approach
>   to syntax by using whitespace to enhance the visual representation
>   of the program's structure.   Many Python converts are here exactly
>   beacuse Python is very readable and thus maintainable.  This proposal
>   is here soley to re-enforce this "pythonic" approach to coding.
>
>Proposal:
>
>   The proposal introduces a 'select' or 'switch' keyword which creates
>   an indented expression block.  Instead of the following,
>
>     exit = { 0: 'no exit',
>              1: 'a door' }.get(quantity,
>             '%s doors' % quantity)
>
>   You could write,
>
>     exit = select quantity
>              case 0: 'no exit'
>              case 1: 'a door'
>              else: '%s doors' % quantity
>
>   This proposal gives you the power of the mapping-idiom without
>   the uglyness.  It expresses the intent of the construct in a 
>   very human readable manner using whitespace smartly.
>
>   While the above is "good", it assumes an equality operator.  So
>   that the structure is more generic, his proposal allows an optional
>   operator (a function taking 2 or more value and returning a boolean)
>   immediately following the 'case' label,
>
>     z = 1.0 + select abs(z)
>                 case < .0001: 0
>                 case > .5: .5
>                 else: -sigma / (t + 1.0)
>   
>   Note that the examples given in the proposal are thus
>   very easily expressed using this notion:
>
>     data = select hasattr(s,'open')
>              case true: s.readlines()
>              else: s.split()
> 
>     z = 1.0 + select abs(z)
>                case < .0001: 0
>                else: z
>
>     t = v[index] = select t
>                      case <= 0:  t - 1.0
>                      else: -sigma / (t + 1.0)
>
>     return select len(s)
>              case < 10: linsort(s)
>             else: qsort(s)
>
>   The 'operator' need not be binary, one could, for example,
>   provide a terinary operator, such as:
>  
>     def between(cmp,rhs,lhs): return cmp >= rhs and cmp <= lhs
> 
>     score = select die
>               case 1: -2
>               case 2: -1
>               case between 3,4: 0
>               case 5: +1
>               case 6: +2
>               else: raise "invalid die roll %d " % roll
>
>Summary:
>
>  The proposal thus creates a flexible mechanism for avoiding
>  the excessive duplication of assignment and equality fragments
>  within a conditional assignment nest; it does so through a
>  new expression structure which, like the rest of Python, uses
>  indentation for structure.
>
>  This proposal thus provides the pratical benefit of a terinary
>  operator, while at the same time opening the door to a rich 
>  (and quite readable) conditional assignment mechanism.  
>
>  In particular, this proposal rejects the rationale for 'terinary'
>  operator as a way to trade horizontal screen realestate for
>  vertical space; as this rationale is in direct opposition to 
>  the fundamental principle of readability.  And as such, the 
>  proposal explicitly does not include a way to include multiple
>  case labels on the same line.
>
>Credits:
>
>  Alex Martelli   for validating the elimination of needless-duplication
>                  of code as the primary goal for the construct; and
>
>  Carel Fellinger for presenting the idea of a plugable predicate/operator
>
>  Raymond Hettinger for asking me to write this up more or less formally
>
>
>
>-- 
>http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>


-- 
Steven Cummings
Columbia, MO
Email: cummingscs at netscape.net
AIM:   cummingscs
ICQ:   3330114


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