Re: Dynamic variable typing?

• Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 20:22:52 PDT
• From:
  hpa@trantor.zytor.com (H. Peter Anvin)
• Reply-To:
  hpa@storm.net (H. Peter Anvin)
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• Newsgroups: local.moo
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• References: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960722221754.7477B-100000@pluto> <Pine.OSF.3.92a.960723114530.4055A-100000@saul4.u.washington.edu>

Followup to:  <Pine.OSF.3.92a.960723114530.4055A-100000@saul4.u.washington.edu>
By author:    Michael Brundage <anomaly@u.washington.edu>
In newsgroup: local.moo
> 
> If you're going to distinguish between binary strings and ordinary
> strings, then you might as well take the plunge and allow user-definable
> data types.  Ideally, the server would allow these to be created within
> the database (instead of at compile time).  Then we would need a uniform
> way to deal with these typed variables.  So then you could code
>    binary_string theData = "foo";
> and now theData is tagged as having type "binary_string".  Or maybe
>    latin1string theData = "something cool";
> 

Actually, a "binary string" is better handled as a byte vector -- the
current version of binary strings is a kluge (partially, I suspect,
because the MOO server could not easily be adapted for new data types
until 1.8.0beta1; I and Pavel had quite a brainstorming session to
figure out how to do FLOAT's.)

A byte vector is *not* a typed string (nor do I believe it is
warranted to do this in MOO); it is a fundamentally different data
type, which I believe it is warranted to add to the language.

	-hpa
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• Re: Dynamic variable typing?
• From: Jay Carlson <nop@nop.com>

• Re: New MOO Maintainer: Me
• From: RICHARD JACOB CONNAMACHER <phantom@sfsu.edu>
• Re: Dynamic variable typing?
• From: Michael Brundage <anomaly@u.washington.edu>

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