Re: Variable attributes - Object-oriented

[Nathan Wiger]

 I believe that mentioning an attribute of a variable is
 really a method call on the variable's underlying object --
 which, in perl6, can have user-definable behavior.
 Where some language use dot or arrow syntax, perl uses colon.
 Very isomorphic.
 
 Please tell me I'm right!  :-)

Pretty much; in fact I just submitted a frozen version of RFC 337 that
tries to extend and firm up this idea. I'm with you, man! ;-)

Since it's deadline time, the implementation didn't get too
super-specific. But the idea's there. Reply to the thread when it comes
out if there's any major holes that need to be plugged.

-Nate

Re: Variable attributes - Object-oriented

[Peter Scott]

At 02:52 PM 10/1/00 -0400, John Porter wrote:
I believe that mentioning an attribute of a variable is
really a method call on the variable's underlying object --
which, in perl6, can have user-definable behavior.
Where some language use dot or arrow syntax, perl uses colon.
Very isomorphic.

And that means any anonymous structure is available for
attributification via normal deref syntax:

   @{ $a[1] }:base(2);  # but I've never seen a script that did this...

   %{ $hr }:keys( qw( name age strangeness ) );

And globals too:

   @known_objects:size(100);

Oo:

 for my $i ( 0 .. @a:last_index ) { # deprecate $#a


Please tell me I'm right!  :-)

I'd be happy to join this cause if the parser can disambiguate this use of 
: vs its appearance in the trinary operator.  Bearing in mind that a highly 
desirable extension would be user-defined variable attributes.
--
Peter Scott
Pacific Systems Design Technologies