From: Markus <markus@...>
Date: 2004-09-21T23:33:44+09:00
Subject: Re: [Nuby Question] Return value of while loop.

On Tue, 2004-09-21 at 03:44, Martin DeMello wrote:
> Markus <markus@reality.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, 2004-09-18 at 12:44, Brian Schr旦der wrote:
> > > > :~$ irb
> > > > irb(main):001:0> (i *= 2) > 100 and break i while i = i || 1
> > > > => 128
> > > 
> > > You won, and I'm even able to grasp what you have written. So no
> > > extra points for obfuscation ;)
> > 
> > What were the criteria again?  The declared winner
> 
> The criterion was to "break i" on loop exit.

     Pardon me if I am being dense, but I still don't see what you are
getting at.  What is the magic of break i?  Wouldn't any control
structure that terminated the loop at the appropriate point and returned
i (as the value of the expression) be just as acceptable?

     For example: 

        (i += i while (i ||= 1) < 100) || i

is semantically equivalent to 
        
        (i *= 2) > 100 and break i while i = i || 1

so far as I can see.

     I tend not to use break (since it is "unstructured" in the GTCH
sense) so forgive me if I am just missing some obvious property or well
known behaviour of break.

-- MarkusQ