On Thu, 24 Oct 2002, Michael Lazzaro wrote:
: $str1 ~ $str2 # $str1 =~ m/$str2/
That would be a smart match, not m/$str2/.
: $str ~ /foo/ # $str1 =~ m/foo/
That would work.
: $str2 = ($str ~ /foo/bar/); # perform subst, assign result to $str2
:
: $str ~= /foo/bar/; # perform subst, assign result to $str
That can't work without the "s". The lexer can't tell if "bar" is a string
or an operator.
But the ~= is a cute trick. Not sure if it's more than that though.
Gotta worry about s/// in a boolean context, for instance. And the
current idiom
($str2 = $str1) =~ s/foo/bar;
is not much longer than yours, though your parens are, I think, optional,
while mine aren't.
But we also have to balance it against the desirability of using ~ for
concatenation. Requiring whitespace around _ is a bit of a rationalization
after the fact, and ~ escapes that problem in most cases.
Plus, smart matching is such a heavyweight, notionally speaking,
that it really deserves a larger operator. Since there's no such
thing as a "logical concat", we might get away with using ~~, and
then people wouldn't have to wonder whether it was ~= or =~.
Or we could make it ===. That would pretty much rule out having the
corresponding assignment operator though...
Or we could leave it =~ for old times sake, and make people learn
the difference from ~=.
Or go with something new:
$a :~ $b
$a =~= $b
$a =? $b
$a <?> $b
$a <~> $b
$a >< $b
$a ::: $b
$a match $b
$a like $b
$a vs $b
$a v $b
If it is, in fact, a topicalizer, then the Japanese would very
naturally parse a postpositional particle:
$a wa $b
Or we could go with Valspeak:
$a is like $b and stuff
At the moment I like "like" the best, actually...
Larry
