On 2017-04-28 01:01, Ryan Joseph wrote:
On Apr 28, 2017, at 12:43 PM, Sven Barth via fpc-pascal
<fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org> wrote:
It would introduce an ambiguity as "(x" could also complete to other
expressions (e.g. "(x + y) * 2" or even merely "(x)"). Especially
older Pascal compilers were geared towards the simplicity of the
language and thus they didn't add it. For FPC it simply never came up.
I never thought about it either until I saw some c++ code doing it.
Despite having overlooked it, it’s basically a built in record
constructor that’s been in the language since forever.
You can also look into GoLang for struct ideas, as golang is simpler
than C++
rec := (x: (x + y) * 2; y: 0; z: 0);
Why can’t everything between : and ; just be treated like a normal
assignment? “x” is already defined but it’s just a label and not part
of the assignment.
It's always easier said than done, to say "Why can't" and then have to
write the actual parser code to do it ;-)
I think fpc is based on wirth's simplicity, and even wirth's languages
probably did not have the ability to setup a record initially with
default record as another poster said. I do like this feature a lot ,
but can see why a minimalist like worth would avoid it.
It's similar to this feature:
x,y,z := 1, 12, 7
It's neat to be able to assign multiple variables on a single line. But
necessary? mandatory?
Again, could look into golang for ideas.. may have something like it
too, without becoming a large C++ mammoth.
In fact that's how golang's error checking works.
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