Re: Auto-creation of simple accessors (was: Perl 6 -Cheerleaders?)

[John Siracusa]

Okay, so we've got these guys auto-created if we want:

    method foo is lvalue { return $.foo }

(plus or minus the syntax) which lets us do:

    $obj.foo = 5;
    print $obj.foo;

So, what about simple array accessors?

    $obj.colors('red', 'green', 'blue');

    $obj.colors = ('red', 'green', 'blue');

    $obj.colors =  ['red', 'green', 'blue' ];

    push $obj.colors, 'red', 'green', 'blue;

    pop $obj.colors;

    print $obj.colors[1] # @{$obj.colors}[1]??  $obj.colors->[1]?? ;)

Can/will such an accessor be auto-created?

How about hashes (or "pairs"?)

    $obj.fruit(apple => 'red', berry => 'blue');

    $obj.fruit = (apple => 'red', berry => 'blue');

    $obj.fruit = { apple => 'red', berry => 'blue' };

    # Change apple color, but leave the blue berry
    $obj.fruit(apple => 'green');

    print $obj.fruit('apple'); # green

Regardless of whether something like the above two examples can/will be
auto-created, what would those methods look like anyway?  Would they simply
be:

    method colors is lvalue { return @.colors }
    method fruit  is lvalue { return %.fruit  }

How many of the examples with the code above support?

-John