For the purpose of constructing good documentation automatically, it is useful to specify the type of value typically returned by a function or method. For example, the function
isModule returns a boolean value, and this is specified when creating the method function with the option
TypicalValue as follows.
isModule = method(TypicalValue => Boolean)
Other functions, such as
prune, return values of various types, depending on the type of the arguments provided. To install a function
f as the handler for
prune applied to a matrix, we would normally use the following statement.
prune Matrix := f
To specify that the value typically returned is a matrix (of class
Matrix), we replace
f by
Matrix => f, as follows.
prune Matrix := Matrix => f
Here is the way our code looks.
i1 : code(prune, Matrix)
o1 = -- code for method: prune(Matrix)
../../../../../Macaulay2/m2/modules2.m2:227:63-232:5: --source code:
minimalPresentation(Matrix) := prune(Matrix) := Matrix => opts -> (m) -> (
M := source m;
if not M.cache.?pruningMap then m = m * (minimalPresentation M).cache.pruningMap;
N := target m;
if not N.cache.?pruningMap then m = (minimalPresentation N).cache.pruningMap^-1 * m;
m)
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The information is stored in the hash table
typicalValues, and can be recovered like this.
i2 : typicalValues#(prune,Matrix)
o2 = Matrix
o2 : Type
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Warning: don't imagine that a definition of the form
f = t -> (...)
can be replaced with a declaration of the following form.
f = X => t -> (...)
The difference here is that here we are using simple assignment, rather than installing a method. To document the return type is
X in this case, make an entry in
typicalValues directly.
f = t -> (...)
typicalValues#f = X