view admin/notes/iftc @ 107591:86eec24bee2c

Retrospective commit from 2009-09-26. Continued working on initialization. Started working on paragraph direction initialization. bidi.c (bidi_paragraph_init): Don't set bidi_it->ch_len. Abort if called not at beginning of a new paragraph. (bidi_get_next_char_visually): Prepare and use a sentinel iterator state when first_elt flag is set. dispextern.h (struct bidi_it): New struct member first_elt. bidi.c (bidi_init_it): Initialize bidi_it->first_elt. (bidi_copy_it): Don't copy the first_elt flag. xdisp.c (reseat_1): Initialize bidi_it.first_elt. Move bidi scan start code from here... (next_element_from_buffer): ...to here. Use bidi_it.first_elt flag.

Iso-Functional Type Contour


This is a term coined to describe "column int->float" change approach, and can
be used whenever low-level types need to change (hopefully not often!) but the
meanings of the values (whose type has changed) do not.

The premise is that changing a low-level type potentially means lots of code
needs to be changed as well, and the question is how to do this incrementally,
which is the preferred way to change things.

Say LOW and HIGH are C functions:

  int LOW (void) { return 1; }
  void HIGH (void) { int value = LOW (); }

We want to convert LOW to return float, so we cast HIGH usage:

  float LOW (void) { return 1.0; }
  void HIGH (void) { int value = (int) LOW (); }  /* iftc */

The comment /* iftc */ is used to mark this type of casting to differentiate
it from other casting.  We commit the changes and can now go about modifying
LOW and HIGH separately.  When HIGH is ready to handle the type change, the
cast can be removed.

;;; arch-tag: 3309cc41-5d59-421b-b7be-c94b04083bb5