Thanks for this clear explanation. If I do the following, is my function
type still unstable? How do you compare the following solution to yours in
terms of efficiency, style, etc?
function compute_outputs(..., output2Flag)
# do some stuff, get x, y, and z
# compute output 1
output1 = ...
if output2Flag
# compute output 2
output2 = ...
else
output2 = SparseMatrixCSC[] # the same type as output2 when it is
computed
end
return output1, output2
end
On Thursday, March 5, 2015 at 10:58:02 AM UTC-5, Steven G. Johnson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, March 4, 2015 at 6:38:28 PM UTC-5, Pooya wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for your response. I am not sure what you mean by a lower-level
>> subroutine. Is that a function inside another one? If yes, How does the
>> scope of variables work for that?
>>
>
> From your description, right now you have:
>
> function compute_two_outputs(...)
> ...do some stuff, get x, y, and z....
> ....use x, y, and z to compute output1....
> ....use output1, x, y, and z to compute output2....
> return output1, output2
> end
>
> Instead, if you don't always want to compute both outputs, but still want
> to write the shared computations only once, you can refactor the code to
> pull out the shared computations into another function (that is "lower
> level" in the sense that users won't normally call it directly):
>
> function some_stuff(...)
> ...do some stuff, get x, y, and z....
> ....use x, y, and z to compute output1....
> return output1,x,y,z
> end
>
> function compute_output1(...)
> return some_stuff(...)[1]
> end
>
> function compute_two_outputs(...)
> output1,x,y,z = some_stuff(...)
> ....use output1, x, y, and z to compute output2....
> return output1, output2
> end
>
>
>
