Re: Divide by zero or how to overload a function

[Robert A. Uhl]

On Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 12:08:45PM -0400, Brett Viren wrote:
> 
> I don't want the users to have to explicitly check for divide by zero
> in their Scheme functions, but rather handle it implicitly.  I thought
> I could do this by writing a custom "/" Scheme function which would
> just detect divide-by-zero and do the right (err, well, actually
> wrong) thing and return zero.  In doing this I come across the problem
> of needing to use the real "/" function but this references my
> overloaded one instead and causes infinite recursion.  Is it possible
> to reference the real "/" inside this overloaded "/"?

Couldn't let or something like that work?  To create your function,
use let to create an environment in which real-divide is bound to
/, then return your divide function (which references real-divide),
which you then bind / to.  The following code is very probably wrong
wrong wrong, as my scheme skills are lacking:

(set! / (let ((real-divide /)) (lambda your code here)))

Apologies to those who do well with scheme.  And apologies if my
understanding of let is lacking.

-- 
Robert Uhl <address@hidden>

The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion.  I could
never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma.
                                              --Abraham Lincoln, tyrant