ftp.cs.arizona.edu/ftp.cs.arizona.edu.tar/ftp.cs.arizona.edu/icon/newsgrp/group94a.txt/000183_icon-group-sender _Tue Jun 21 11:27:52 1994.msg

Internet Message Format | 1994-08-19 | 2KB

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Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 11:27:52 +0100
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From: Jason Grossman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: anti-ugly contest
Status: R
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>Help stamp out ugly icon code!
>
>I'm getting better.  My first ugly version of the following routine,
>produced after much trial and error, required two (count 'em!) extra
>variables.  After some inspection, I managed to reduce it to:
>
>        procedure squeeze(s)
>           # Squeze out excess blanks from inside a string
>           s2 := ""
>           s ? {
>             while s2 ||:= tab(upto(" ")+1) do tab(many(" "))
>             s2 ||:= tab(0)
>             }
>           return s2
>        end
>
>That cut the number of extra variables down to one (s2).
>Question: Is there an even more elegant way to do this that requires
>no extra variables?


I do it using a replace procedure, so I could say

procedure squeeze (s)

        s := replace (" ", "", s)

end

and replace is defined by

procedure replace (a, b, s)

        /s := \&subject  # in case we're doing pattern matching
        while (s [find (a, s)+:*a] := b)
        return s

end


Is this inefficient? (Be lenient. I'm a beginner.)

Jason