In the documentation it isn't clear to me whether I need to iterate through in order with either next or perhaps foldl (it is mentioned that foldr goes in the opposite order to ordered_set so presuambly foldl goes in the same order) or if I can use select and rely upon it being ordered (assuming ordered_set table)
1 Answers
can I use
selectand rely upon it being ordered (assuming ordered_set table)
For tables of type ordered_set, objects are visited in the same order as in a first/next traversal. This means that the match specification is executed against objects with keys in the first/next order and the corresponding result list is in the order of that execution.
Returns the first key Key in table Tab. For an ordered_set table, the first key in Erlang term order is returned.
Traversals using
matchandselectfunctions may not need to scan the entire table depending on how the key is specified. A match pattern with a fully bound key (without any match variables) will optimize the operation to a single key lookup without any table traversal at all. For ordered_set a partially bound key will limit the traversal to only scan a subset of the table based on term order.
It would make no sense to me for a table of type ordered_set to return search results in a random order.
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