[julia-users] preferred way to dispatch on first element of array?

[Chris Stook]

Is there a way to dispatch on the type of the first element of an array 
without passing the first element as a separate argument.

for example:

a = Array{Any,1}

function f(a::Array{Any,1}, a1::Int)
  # do int stuff here
end 
function f(a::Array{Any,1}, a1::Float64)
  # do float stuff here
end

# call like this
f(a, a[1]) # better way?

# would prefer to call like this
f(a)

Thanks,
Chris