AstonJ

AstonJ

Do you say 'unpack' or 'destructure'?

Consider this Erlang code:

Rectangle = {rectangle, 20, 10}.
{rectangle, Width, Height} = Rectangle.
> Width.
20
> Height.
10

When I was watching an Elixir video the person kept calling this ‘destructuring’ (which I think is what they say in the JS world?) but Joe Armstrong, in his book Programming Erlang, calls this ‘unpacking’ - so I am curious, how do you refer to it when using a BEAM language?

  • Unpack
  • Destructure
  • Use the terms interchangeably depending on the language
  • Something else - please say in thread!

0 voters

Most Liked

chriseyre2000

chriseyre2000

Technically it’s pattern matching since we can be more specific by repeating a variable to ensure that it is used in multiple places.

Eiji

Eiji

Object : typeof instance === "object". Special non-data but Structural type for any constructed object instance also used as data structures: new Object, new Array, new Map, new Set, new WeakMap, new WeakSet, new Date and almost everything made with new keyword;

Source: JavaScript data types and data structures - JavaScript | MDN

This quote shows us that equivalent/similar data types across languages are implemented and therefore grouped differently which means that we can’t use exactly same naming. Different naming forces new developer to think: Why it's named like that? and that ends up with looking for it’s definition.

The destructuring assignment syntax is a JavaScript expression that makes it possible to unpack values from arrays, or properties from objects, into distinct variables.

Source: Destructuring assignment - JavaScript | MDN

Having in mind that both destructure and unpack are used only for arrays and objects it’s confusing to use them in Elixir for other data types like for example string. Destructure naming could also be confusing for newbies as we have structs.

Destructure and unpack antonyms suggest that we have something structured or packed which is not always true. While it’s common to say that we are unpacking bits from string still we can’t say that we are unpacking something from literal like for example: 5 = variable.

Generally i.e. for all data types I prefer to think about some connection of assignment, fetch, pattern and take words (which are most common) like taking by pattern or something like that.

@AstonJ Considering your Erlang code we can say that we are taking items: rectangle, Width and Height by 3-element tuple pattern of Rectangle variable. What do you think about it?

Where Next?

Popular Backend topics Top

AstonJ
Currently a hot topic in the BEAM world, let’s start a thread for it (as suggested by @crowdhailer here) :smiley: What are your current...
New
bot
Add sound to your Python game. This is part 13 in an ongoing series about creating video games in Python 3 using the Pygame module. Prev...
New
New
First poster: bot
Rust 2021 Roadmap by Mark-Simulacrum · Pull Request #3037 · rust-lang/rfcs. The focus of this year is on project health, specifically as...
New
ariandanim
Hello, i am facing difficult using webpack when to install within phoenix framework 1.5.7 because the webpack is still version 4.x.x inf...
New
First poster: bot
https://twitter.com/briandfoy_perl/status/1354535622069919748 This thread was posted by one of our members via one of our news source tr...
New
mafinar
I did not add this to a “this weekend I’ll learn” like my few other journals as I am decided on using this in the long term. Last I work...
New
jaeyson
Sorry for the very vague noob question, I really want to ask this: When do we use async or sync code in the context of Elixir? AFAIK gen...
New
mafinar
We always have fun in this forum around this time of the year, discussing the days’ (or yesterdays’) challenges and talking through solut...
New
jss
If you like video courses, maybe you should try this: https://clojureforpros.com/
New

Other popular topics Top

AstonJ
A thread that every forum needs! Simply post a link to a track on YouTube (or SoundCloud or Vimeo amongst others!) on a separate line an...
New
AstonJ
We have a thread about the keyboards we have, but what about nice keyboards we come across that we want? If you have seen any that look n...
New
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Create efficient, elegant software tests in pytest, Python's most powerful testing framework. Brian Okken @brianokken Edited by Kat...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Rails 7 completely redefines what it means to produce fantastic user experiences and provides a way to achieve all the benefits of single...
New
New
CommunityNews
A Brief Review of the Minisforum V3 AMD Tablet. Update: I have created an awesome-minisforum-v3 GitHub repository to list information fo...
New
AstonJ
If you’re getting errors like this: psql: error: connection to server on socket “/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432” failed: No such file or directory ...
New
AstonJ
This is cool! DEEPSEEK-V3 ON M4 MAC: BLAZING FAST INFERENCE ON APPLE SILICON We just witnessed something incredible: the largest open-s...
New
mindriot
Ok, well here are some thoughts and opinions on some of the ergonomic keyboards I have, I guess like mini review of each that I use enoug...
New