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Postings from September 2012
On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 8:43 AM, Ricardo Signes <perl.p5p@rjbs.manxome.org>wrote: > * Leon Timmermans <fawaka@gmail.com> [2012-09-01T10:44:44] > > On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 4:33 PM, Aaron Priven <aaron@priven.com> wrote: > > > is it possible to add a binary infix operator in a Perl 5 module? > > > > I don't think so > > That is also my understanding: it would be great if it existed and worked, > but > it doesn't, and would be hard to make happen. OK, that's what I thought. I don't remember ever using ~~ except in the "$scalar ~~ @array" sense, which provides a simple infix operator in core perl for what seems to me to be a really common, simple function: is such-and-such an element of this array? The proposal takes that away, and replaces it with "$scalar eq any(@array)" -- where "any" creates a junction. That's not a lot more characters, of course, but it is some. And while some people may think naturally "is this thing equal to any of the members of this other thing?", I suspect it's a lot more natural for people to think "is this thing in this container?" I don't know what I think of the rest of the smartmatch discussion. I'm pretty sure I would never use the limited smartmatch being discussed, but that's not an argument against it. But I do think simple replacements for what are smartmatch's common uses today would be good to have. I think, even if it's implemented in terms of junctions, having a binary "in" operator would be easier for people to understand and a worthy addition to the Perl language. And one that, clearly, cannot be tried out as a module. -- Aaron Priven, aaron@priven.comThread Previous | Thread Next