On Fri, 2004-04-23 at 05:42, Dan Sugalski wrote:
Since any type potentially has assignment behaviour, it has to be a constructor. For example, if you've got the Joe class set such that assigning to it prints the contents to stderr, this:
my Joe $foo; $foo = 12;
should print 12 to stderr. Can't do that if you've not put at least a minimally constructed thing in the slot.
(hypothetical pre-breakfasty musings)
Such as a PerlUndef with the 'expected_type' property set to 'Joe'?
Sure, that's doable, as are a number of other things. Depends on the semantics of assignment to uninitialized types, though that's on a per-type basis. This all gets somewhat messy when you mix in objects and types, since what you'd do for storage depends on a number of factors. (Like we want a low-level int if that was "my int $foo", a generic restriction on what it can hold a reference to if Joe's just a dull class, or impose assignment semantics on if it's a bit more active)
--
Dan
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