"David Whipp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Piers Cawley
>> > This may be a case of keep up at the back, but if that is a
>> method call,
>> > how do I call a subroutine from within a method ?
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> Yes, I know there's several different ways I could do it, but this
>> approach feels right.
>
> I think this comes does to huffmann encoding: which things are
> common, and which are less common. This probably depends on
> what you are doing (what paradigm you are following), so its
> really a question about the nature of perl.
>
> The things I've heard people wanting to do are:
>
> call method on current topic
> call method on current invocant
> call class method on invocant's class
> call private subroutine defined in current class
> call global subroutine
>
> The following syntaxes have been seen:
>
> foo()
> .foo()
> ..foo() ## rejected because ".." is different binary op
> class.foo()
> FooClass.foo()
> ::foo()
> Package::foo()
> $foo()
> $_.foo()
>
> I see 2 partionings:
>
> * by scope: topic, self, named package, global
> * by invocant: instance, class, none
>
> My suggested resolutions:
>
> By Scope: global/ named package use the existing
> Foo::bar syntax; Topic uses unary . syntax; self
> uses nothing
>
> By invocant: infer from current invocant/topic; use
> &foo() for no invocant
>
> Thus, the perl5 transalations would be:
>
> foo() => $self->foo()
> .foo() => $_->foo()
> &foo() => foo()
> ::foo() => ::foo()
> Bar::bar() => Bar::bar()
>
> class.foo() => ref($self)->foo()
> .class.foo() => ref($_)->foo()
>
> &foo(self) => foo($self->self)
> => $self->self->foo()
>
> This assumes that C<class> and C<self> are defined in
> UNIVERSAL
For reasons that I can't quite put my finger on at the moment, I
really, really don't like that approach. One of the really nice things
about perl 4 was that we didn't have to use & any more. Making it
essential seems like a horribly retrograde step. I suppose you could
require the & only when calling subroutines from within a method/class
definitions, but I still don't like it.
--
Piers
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in
possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite."
-- Jane Austen?
