[Swift-devel] Re: folding/sequential-while/whatever and accessing data in files

[Michael Wilde]

extractint is nice in the sense that any file produced by an app can be 
used to pass a (single?) return value.

alternatively the RETVAL declaration makes it "seem" as if any function 
can return any number of scalar/list values. This hides the value 
passing as part of the calling mechanism for atomic functions.

- mike

Ben Clifford wrote:
> it was fairly easy to make an @extactint function that lets you do this:
> 
>  type file;
>  file f <"myint.txt">;
>  print(@extractint(f) + 1);
> 
> However, that pretty much introduces a separate description of the file 
> contents (by using the extractint function) distinct from the mapping and 
> type system. ick.