WISH: compact construction syntax for vector types

[Siskin-Bot]

Submitted by: Oldes

As we don't have any syntax for vector and its variants, I think it would be nice to enhance construction syntax a little bit, to support short vector variant creation.

For example:

>> #[ui8! 3]
== make vector! [unsigned integer! 8 3 [0 0 0]]
>> #[si16! [1 2 3]]
== make vector! [integer! 16 3 [1 2 3]]

Supported numeric types could be:

si8!
si16!
si32!
si64!

ui8!
ui16!
ui32!
ui64!

f32!
f64!

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^{Imported from: metaeducation#2396}

Comments:

Oldes added a commit to Oldes/Rebol3 that referenced this issue on Jan 29, 2020:
FEAT: VECTOR compact construction

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Oldes added a commit to Oldes/Rebol3 that referenced this issue on Jan 29, 2020:
TEST: using short vector construction in a part of the vector tests

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Oldes added a commit to Oldes/Rebol3 that referenced this issue on Jan 29, 2020:
TEST: a few more vector tests (using semi-compact construction)

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Jankom commented on Jan 29, 2020:

Can I ask what you use vectors for in Rebol? Absolutely not that I think they aren't usefull, but I haven't thought of using them so far with Rebol and am just interested?

Does r3 have special block types like #[ ] ?

The solution of just having a function like a "vector" function like vector 'ui32 [ 1 2 3 ] is not OK because you want to create them directly from loader, not a block that is then loaded into vector at runtime?

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Oldes commented on Jan 30, 2020:

At this moment I'm using vectors for sound processing and before I used them in graphics too.
#[] is construction syntax... usually used with save/all and mold/all to save data in serialized format without losing index.

>> mold next "123"
== {"23"}

>> mold/all next "123"
== {#[string! "123" 2]}

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Oldes commented on Jan 30, 2020:

I know, that it is just a cosmetic thing, but why not to have it, when it was so cheap to add. My goal is to do 3D from Rebol one day, and I think, that code:

cam-Position: #[f32! [4.0 3.0 3.0]] ;Camera is at (4,3,3), in World Space
cam-Target:   #[f32! [0.0 0.0 0.0]] ;and looks at the origin
cam-Head:     #[f32! [0.0 1.0 0.0]] ;Head is up

looks better than:

cam-Position: make vector! [decimal! 32 [4.0 3.0 3.0]] ;Camera is at (4,3,3), in World Space
cam-Target:   make vector! [decimal! 32 [0.0 0.0 0.0]] ;and looks at the origin
cam-Head:     make vector! [decimal! 32 [0.0 1.0 0.0]] ;Head is up

Of course I can use helper functions.

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