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Re: Adam Bosworth Article - what does "directaccess"m ean?

• To: jenglish@f... (Joe English)
• Subject: Re: Adam Bosworth Article - what does "directaccess"m ean?
• From: John Cowan <jcowan@r...>
• Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 13:50:05 -0500 (EST)
• Cc: xml-dev@l... (XML DEV)
• In-reply-to: <200301191838.h0JIcwr00452@d...> from "Joe English" at Jan 19, 2003 10:38:58 AM

Joe English scripsit:

> Not necessarily: the infix operator "-" can easily be
> defined as an operation on strings.   Parse the left and
> right operands as numbers (raising an error if they're not
> syntactically valid), subtract one from the other, then
> format the result as a string.

Indeed, you can go further, using the REXX approach, where arithmetic
is defined *directly* on (suitably) restricted strings, with no concept
of conversion (except conversion between individual *digits* and
numbers, which can be done by a table).  The same algorithms are used
that we learned in primary school.

-- 
Knowledge studies others / Wisdom is self-known;      John Cowan
Muscle masters brothers / Self-mastery is bone;       jcowan@r...
Content need never borrow / Ambition wanders blind;   www.ccil.org/~cowan
Vitality cleaves to the marrow / Leaving death behind.    --Tao 33 (Bynner)

• References:
  • Re: Adam Bosworth Article - what does "directaccess"m ean?
    • From: Joe English <jenglish@f...>

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