Records and Record Types

A record is just like a tuple except that each field name of the record is chosen by the programmer (instead of being fixed). Similarly, a record type is just like a tuple type. For instance, a record type point2D is defined as follows:

where x and y are the names of the two fields in a record value of this type. We also refer to a field in a record as a component. The special symbol @{ indicates that the formed type is for flat/native/unboxed records. A value of the type point2D is constructed as follows and given the name theOrigin:

We can use the standard dot notation to extract out a selected component in a record, and this is shown in the next line of code:

Alternatively, we can use pattern matching for doing component extraction as is done in the next line of code: In this case, the names theOrigin_x and theOrigin_y are bound to the components in theOrgin that are named x and y, respectively. If we only need to extract out a selected few of components (instead of all the available ones), we can make use of the following kind of patterns: If you find all this syntax for component extraction to be confusing, then I suggest that you stick to the dot notation. I myself rarely use pattern matching on record values.

Compared with handling native/flat/unboxed records, the only change needed for handling boxed records is to replace the special symbol @{ with another one: '{, which is a quote followed immediately by a left curly brace.