On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 11:37:06AM -0700, Craig DeForest wrote:
: I just re-read Synopsis 9, which covers PDL-related actions and array
slicing,
: and came to the conclusion that either (A) there's a hole in the syntax as it
: is lain out, (B) I lack sufficient understanding of what has been thought
: out so far, or (C) that part of the language definition isn't finished yet.
I expect C is closest to the mark. :-)
: Is the perl6 expression
: @a[4; 0..5];
: a 1x6 array (probably correct)? Or a 6 array (probably not correct)?
Certainly the former. I don't think dimensions should ever disappear
accidentally.
: If the former, how do you specify that you want the latter?
I don't know offhand. I see both the lure and the danger of the
extra parens, so we'll probably not go that route. We could find
some keyword that destroys the current dimension while supplying a
scalar argument:
@a[gone(4); 0..5];
Or maybe we want some notation that is explicitly a null slice with
a scalar value, maybe something like:
@a[() but 4; 0..5];
or
@a[():pick(4); 0..5];
or
@a[4 but dim(); 0..5];
or maybe even something strange like:
@a[()=4; 0..5];
But I'm certainly open to other suggestions.
Larry
