On Fri, 13 Nov 2020 at 09:39, David Mertz <me...@gnosis.cx> wrote:
>
> I have read a great deal of discussion on the pattern matching PEPs and less 
> formal discussions.  It is possible I have overlooked some post in all of 
> that, of course.
>
> ... OK, just saw Guido's "wait for new SC" comment, which I suppose applies 
> to this too :-).
>
> One idea that I cannot recall seeing, but that seems to make sense to me and 
> fit with Python's feel is using a WORD to distinguish between a variable 
> value and a binding target.  That is, instead of a special symbol prefixing 
> or suffixing a name, either to indicate it is or is not a binding target.  Of 
> course, whether the extra word would be used for binding or for NOT binding 
> is a question still.

If someone was prepared to pursue this to the level of writing a 3rd
competing PEP, the variant I would personally like to see written up
is the one where capture patterns are all prefixed with the keyword
`as`.

PEP 634 already uses the `PATTERN as NAME` syntax to combine other
match patterns with a capture pattern, and I'm going to be amending
PEP 642 to propose using `as` when embedding capture patterns inside
class patterns (`ATTR as NAME`) and mapping patterns (`KEY as NAME`).
>From there, it's an entirely plausible step to also require the `as`
prefix on capture patterns in sequence patterns and as top level
standalone patterns.

I personally don't think that extra step would be a good idea due to
the inconsistency with name binding and iterable unpacking in regular
assignment statements (if I liked the idea, I'd have already included
it in PEP 642), but I think "anchor match patterns in normal
expressions rather than assignment target syntax" is a credible enough
idea that the overall design process would benefit from having a
champion write it up.

> To me these read better than the punctuation characters.  But I guess some 
> folks have suggested enlisting 'as', which is a word, of course.

Indeed, and one that doesn't look too bad for top level patterns:

    NOT_FOUND = 404
    match http_code:
      case 200:
          print("OK document")
      case NOT_FOUND:  # use the variable value
          print("Document not found")
      case as other_code:  # bind this name
          print("Other HTTP code")

It starts to look a bit more strange when matching sequences, though:

    match seq:
        case as first, *middle, as last:
            ... # Or should that be "*as middle"?

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncogh...@gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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