Yes you're right: I could've sworn I tried that in the repl a minute ago and it worked, but actually it's a no-op and appends nothing to the hash.
This is okay, doing it the other way (without the inner parens around the colonpair) is not: ny %stash; my @monsters = << godzilla grendel wormface blob >>; my @rabbits = << bugs peter easter >>; %stash.append( (:@monsters) ); %stash.append( (:@rabbits) ); say %stash; On 3/17/20, Vadim Belman <vr...@lflat.org> wrote: > > Joseph, you've got yourself into a trap I fell into yesterday. > %stash.append( :@stuff ) syntax is about calling append method with a named > parameter stuff whereas append works with positionals only. So, your case > should be written: > > %stash.append( (:@stuff) ); > > Which is apparently more cumbersome. In either case, use of colons is not > always about saving a character or two. Sometimes it's about readability, > sometimes about elegance. Overuse is surely bad, but overuse of anything is > bad, for that matter. :) > > Best regards, > Vadim Belman > >> On Mar 17, 2020, at 1:09 PM, Joseph Brenner <doom...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Though I've no idea what those colons are/are not doing. >> >> Those are "colon pairs" (which I've relearned around three times now...): >> >> https://docs.raku.org/language/glossary#index-entry-Colon_Pair >> <https://docs.raku.org/language/glossary#index-entry-Colon_Pair> >> >> Except for this colon: >> >> %stash.append: (rocks => @rocks); >> >> Which is a short hand for this: >> >> %stash.append( (rocks => @rocks) ); >> >> As an aside: it's a minor style point, but I think a lot of >> us overuse that trick-- it saves a character, but the explicit >> parens are more flexible. >> >> Notably this works fine, so here it doesn't even save any >> characters: >> >> %stash.append( :@stuff ); >> >> > >
