On 2/13/2013 1:08 AM, Bruno Luong wrote:
...
> If one wants to develop a function that accept any kind of numerical
> data, the behavior should be defined. So it is legitimate to speak how
> colon behave when feed in complex data. That's how a specification of a
> function is defined and developed. This is the basic concept of software
> development.
That's again my observation there is no definitive language reference
for Matlab--only a more or less complete narrative description.
> Now if user can't make head or tail with the behavior of such and such
> function, that's his problem.
Well, that's a problem when the behavior doesn't follow the description
but if there is no description it seems rather rude to blame that on the
user. :)
> Recently I use the fact that ([]:1) return an empty set, therefore allow
> me to save 1 test in my implementation. Is it meaningless?
Would all depend on context. Again, you bring in unrelated issues--the
question specifically was on what colon() would mean for complex input
when the two parts are separated by a different sign in the change
between their values--so that the implicit default unit step for reals
doesn't supply enough information to have a meaning.
One could, of course, define another set of defaults for the case, but
the parser already warns that the use of complex isn't legal so it's
hard to argue for anything but it being user error at the moment.
What any other case is for another particular piece of the language is
immaterial to this one.
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...
> If one wants to develop a function that accept any kind of numerical
> data, the behavior should be defined. So it is legitimate to speak how
> colon behave when feed in complex data. That's how a specification of a
> function is defined and developed. This is the basic concept of software
> development.
That's again my observation there is no definitive language reference
for Matlab--only a more or less complete narrative description.
> Now if user can't make head or tail with the behavior of such and such
> function, that's his problem.
Well, that's a problem when the behavior doesn't follow the description
but if there is no description it seems rather rude to blame that on the
user. :)
> Recently I use the fact that ([]:1) return an empty set, therefore allow
> me to save 1 test in my implementation. Is it meaningless?
Would all depend on context. Again, you bring in unrelated issues--the
question specifically was on what colon() would mean for complex input
when the two parts are separated by a different sign in the change
between their values--so that the implicit default unit step for reals
doesn't supply enough information to have a meaning.
One could, of course, define another set of defaults for the case, but
the parser already warns that the use of complex isn't legal so it's
hard to argue for anything but it being user error at the moment.
What any other case is for another particular piece of the language is
immaterial to this one.
--