chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (08/10/89)
In article <207600030@s.cs.uiuc.edu> mccaugh@s.cs.uiuc.edu writes: >I couldn't help but side with the suggestion of "quadratic" even if it was >misguided .... The point being that 'quadratic' means 'square', and it is >an inference that the latter means "to the power 2". Ah, but then a `quadratic' operator should be one that is written two-dimensionally! :-) signum = quad v : < 0 = -1, == 0 = 0, default 1; Actually, if one is going to generalise, an `n-way' operator makes more sense. The syntax is icky, but the idea is clear: Something like choose expr_0 from relational_1 expr_1 : value_1; relational_2 expr_2 : value_2; relational_3 expr_3 : value_3; . . . relational_n expr_n : value_n; default : value_d; esoohc; Such constructs do exist in other languages. -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) Domain: chris@mimsy.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris