Why use OptionsPattern, OptionsValue ?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg102296] Why use OptionsPattern, OptionsValue ?
- From: "Ted Ersek" <ersekt at md.metrocast.net>
- Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 04:29:31 -0400 (EDT)
Prior to Mathematica version 6 a good way to write a function with two options was the following. ----------------------------------------------------------- Options[foo] = {Opt1 -> val1, Opt2 -> val2}; foo[x_, opts___?OptionQ] := Module[{optn1, optn2}, {optn1, optn2} = {Opt1, Opt2} /. Flatten[{opts, Options[foo]}]; Blah[x, optn1, optn2] ] ---------------------------------------------------------- I am pretty sure the program above does the same thing in every version of Mathematica (since version 3 if not earlier). However, as of Mathematica 6 we have OptionsPattern, and OptionsValue. It seems the main utility of OptionsPattern, and OptionsValue are to define functions such as the one above. One clear advantage to the old approach (see my example above) is that you end up with code that works well across many versions of Mathematica. What are the advantages to implementing options using OptionsPattern, and OptionsValue? Thanks, Ted Ersek