In a message dated Tue, 3 Sep 2002, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > On Monday, September 2, 2002, at 03:44 AM, Damian Conway wrote: > > >> my Date $date .= new('Jun 25, 20002'); > > > > Hmmmm. That's a very interesting idea. > > I like it. > > Looks pretty groovy to me too. It looks like the .= > operator, no longer being employed as a string appender, > now means "use the class I just mentioned". > > If so, perhaps it would only be a small step further for > it to also mean "and if I don't give the name of the method, > use new_from_[class of object being passed]". So, the following code > would call Date::new_from_String, passing 'Sep 21, 1963' as the > sole argument: > > my Date $date; > $date .= 'Sep 21, 1963'; > > The Perl golfers will love it. It's almost as concise as the original > idea, w/o the ambuguity of what ought to be assigned (the string or a new > object). It shouldn't slow things down, either, because the determination > of the argument's class could be determined at compile time.
But... no strict 'refs'; my Date $date; $date .= 'Sep 21, 1963'; There is a method name there--'Date::Sep 21, 1963'. Okay, maybe that's a far-fetched example. But: no strict 'refs'; my Date $date; $date .= 'today'; Call Date.today() and assign its result to $date, or Call Date.new('today') and assign it to $date? I think the method name is required in this case. Trey