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1 Iso-Functional Type Contour
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2
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3
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4 This is a term coined to describe "column int->float" change approach, and can
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5 be used whenever low-level types need to change (hopefully not often!) but the
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6 meanings of the values (whose type has changed) do not.
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7
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8 The premise is that changing a low-level type potentially means lots of code
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9 needs to be changed as well, and the question is how to do this incrementally,
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10 which is the preferred way to change things.
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11
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12 Say LOW and HIGH are C functions:
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13
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14 int LOW (void) { return 1; }
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15 void HIGH (void) { int value = LOW (); }
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16
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17 We want to convert LOW to return float, so we cast HIGH usage:
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18
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19 float LOW (void) { return 1.0; }
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20 void HIGH (void) { int value = (int) LOW (); } /* iftc */
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21
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22 The comment /* iftc */ is used to mark this type of casting to differentiate
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23 it from other casting. We commit the changes and can now go about modifying
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24 LOW and HIGH separately. When HIGH is ready to handle the type change, the
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25 cast can be removed.
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