[racket] struct-copy with parent type

Thanks Jay.

So with the generics approach I would just create a gen-struct-copy with
the same signature as struct-copy, then the implementation of
gen-struct-copy in each of my structs would just call struct-copy with the
correct struct-id. Is that the right approach?

Also, is there a way to introspect the struct-id if the struct is
transparent? Something like:

(define p (3posn 1 2 3))
(struct-copy (struct-id p) p [x #:parent posn 5])

This obviously wouldn't work if p was a posn, but in my use case, the
parent class is abstract so I know I'm getting child classes. I scanned
through some of the struct docs, but couldn't find a way to introspect a
struct type.


On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 1:16 PM, Jay McCarthy <jay.mccarthy at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Nick Shelley <nickmshelley at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > The struct-copy docs say "The result of struct-expr can be an instance
> of a
> > sub-type of id, but the resulting copy is an immediate instance of id
> (not
> > the sub-type)." Why is this?
>
> The technical reason this is the case is that in (struct-copy <struct>
> ... ...) the <struct> binding describes the fields of the structure
> and gives access to the constructor. Thus, in your example code, you
> are saying "copy this posn" and not "copy this thing and modify the
> posn pieces". You could imagine that we could create a link between
> parent and sub-structures, but it would be messy and imperative, in my
> mind.
>
> Alternatively, you could make a version that lists the possible
> children directly:
>
>
> https://github.com/jeapostrophe/exp/blob/cf6822f41c7637d9074638d0e9b4d4d2d7d27d7b/struct-copy-ish.rkt
>
> Alternatively, you could use generics
>
> > For instance, I would hope this would work:
> >
> > (struct posn (x y))
> > (struct 3d-posn posn (z))
> > (3d-posn-z (struct-copy posn (3d-posn 1 2 3) [x 5]))
> >
> > My actual use case is that I'm representing some data with structs. I
> have
> > the common data in a parent struct and the specific data in the child
> > structs. One of the common fields is a unique id (a number I just
> > increment). I'd like to be able to copy a piece of data and just change
> the
> > unique id in the struct-copy. Instead I have to have a cond or a match
> that
> > does the same struct-copy but with different struct ids for each sub
> type.
> >
> > Is there an easier way to do what I'm trying to do?
> >
> > ____________________
> >   Racket Users list:
> >   http://lists.racket-lang.org/users
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jay McCarthy <jay at cs.byu.edu>
> Assistant Professor / Brigham Young University
> http://faculty.cs.byu.edu/~jay
>
> "The glory of God is Intelligence" - D&C 93
>
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