From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2008-08-14T11:26:05+09:00
Subject: Re: case statement and ranges

Mini Skirt wrote:
> Hey, I want to do something like that:
> 
> case amount
> when 25..50: 42
> when 51..66: 78
> when 90..123: 99
> end
> 
> which works of course.
> 
> Now what I would like to have some other cases like when amount is lower
> that 25, but with no minimum, or when it is higher that 123 ...
> I could write something like:
> 
> case
> when amount === (25..50): 42
> when amount === (51..66): 78
> when amount === (90..123): 99
> when amount < 25: 100
> when amount > 123: 200
> else 0 # this would happen only when amount is in 67...90
> end
> 
> But it doesn't feel that well ... since I am repeating my amount
> variable all the time and this is precisely what the 'case something'
> construct is about.
> 
> I cold also use some extremely high and extremely low values in ranges,
> like (123..100000000) or (-10000000..25) to handle the other cases since
> I know that in my use, it would be fine. But it does look quite
> inelegant ....
> 
> thx

Big numbers are more elegant if they are big enough:

Infinity = 1/0.0
amount = 456
p case amount
when 25..50: 42
when 51..66: 78
when 90..123: 99
when -Infinity..25: 100
when 123..Infinity: 200
end

-- 
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407