# How to match at least one type in vararg list for method?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-match-at-least-one-type-in-vararg-list-for-method/4087
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** question
**Created:** [June 5, 2017, 4:07am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-match-at-least-one-type-in-vararg-list-for-method/4087 "2017-06-05T04:07:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@djsegal](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/djsegal)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2017, 4:07am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-match-at-least-one-type-in-vararg-list-for-method/4087/1 "2017-06-05T04:07:28Z")
Let’s say for example, you have:
```julia
Base.min(ex::Sym, exs...) =
reduce((x,y)->sympy_meth(:Min, x, y), ex, exs)
```
This will not catch anything where the `Sym` comes in the `exs` array.
For example,
- `Base.min(Sym(x), 123)` -------- works
- `Base.min(404, Sym(x))` -------- does not work!
Is there a way to to say `exs` is treated as `Sym` if at least one is present?
---
### Author:  [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2017, 7:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-match-at-least-one-type-in-vararg-list-for-method/4087/2 "2017-06-05T07:51:11Z")
AFAIK there is no way to do this directly. For the best approach, see the family of helper functions for `broadcast`. In particular, depending on what you want exactly (which you did not describe fully), you need roughly something like
```julia
_mymin(T, exs...) = ...
mymin(exs...) = _mymin(calculateT(exs...), exs...)
```
where `T` is the result of some computation on types from the types of `exs`, done by a helper function (look at `containertype`, `_containertype`, and `promote_containertype`, obviously you need something much simpler).
---
### Author:  [@rdeits](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rdeits)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2017, 11:03am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-match-at-least-one-type-in-vararg-list-for-method/4087/3 "2017-06-05T11:03:35Z")
There’s a trick that achieves this result in StaticArrays, but AFAIK it’s not something that Julia guarantees: [https://github.com/JuliaArrays/StaticArrays.jl/pull/136#discussion\_r109543567](https://github.com/JuliaArrays/StaticArrays.jl/pull/136#discussion_r109543567)
---
### Author:  [@jameson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jameson)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2017, 9:41pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-match-at-least-one-type-in-vararg-list-for-method/4087/4 "2017-06-07T21:41:56Z")
Yes, the plan is to probably change that in the next release ([https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/21026#issuecomment-306624369](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/21026#issuecomment-306624369))