disclaimer: sorry if it has been mentioned before


how about adapting the $ token to convert anything to a string ? like

int foo = 5;
char[] bar = $foo;

// bar == "5"

i dont think this would be a large problem to implement whilst BASIC dudes would instantly know it's sth bout strings :] in BASIC you read a$ as 'a string'.

that's my vote in the $ war ;]

Sorry mate, but that sounds like a ridiculously cheap waste of an operator that we may well find use for - e.g. serialisation, built-in rexex, ... - at a later stage.

What's wrong with have a toString() shim function, defined for objects and for all built-in types. (In fact don't we have that already? It's been a while since I've delved into the bowels of Phobos ...)

"h3r3tic" <h3r3tic@dev.null> wrote in message news:cg41l1$2u3m$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> disclaimer: sorry if it has been mentioned before
>
>
> how about adapting the $ token to convert anything to a string ? like
>
> int foo = 5;
> char[] bar = $foo;
>
> // bar == "5"
>
> i dont think this would be a large problem to implement whilst BASIC dudes would instantly know it's sth bout strings :] in BASIC you read a$ as 'a string'.
>
> that's my vote in the $ war ;]

Matthew wrote:
> Sorry mate, but that sounds like a ridiculously cheap waste of an operator that we may well find use for - e.g.
> serialisation, built-in rexex, ... - at a later stage.

i dunno bout built-in rexex(regexp?) but for serialization ? cmon... i'd rather have a function serialize() and $ for strings instead of toString() for strings and $ for serialization... i mean, how often do you perform each of those ? most ppl probably don't do as much serialization as string conversion. using $ for serialization would be a waste IMHO...
could u give some more details about the "rexex" thingie ?

In article <cg490p$nk$1@digitaldaemon.com>, h3r3tic says...

>could u give some more details about the "rexex" thingie ?

Assuming that "regexp" was intended, there is plenty of information about regular expressions on the web, including this nice one: http://gnosis.cx/publish/programming/regular_expressions.html. Just google "regular expressions" for more.

For D, however, I plan something more ambitious in the long term - Unicode Regular Expressions - the definition of which is found in Unicode Technical Standard #18 at http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr18/. (Check it out if interested).

However, regular expressions (whether ASCII or Unicode) don't seem to require any special characters outside of a string literal. Sure, '$' means "end of string", but you'd pass the regexp pattern inside a string literal. I don't believe that a change to D lexing involving $ would be a good idea here.

But I don't want $ used for toString() either. We've only got a few unused ASCII symbols left, so I think we should save them until something /really/ important crops up.

Arcane Jill

"h3r3tic" <h3r3tic@dev.null> wrote in message news:cg490p$nk$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Matthew wrote:
> > Sorry mate, but that sounds like a ridiculously cheap waste of an operator that we may well find use for - e.g. serialisation, built-in rexex, ... - at a later stage.
>
> i dunno bout built-in rexex(regexp?) but for serialization ? cmon... i'd
> rather have a function serialize() and $ for strings instead of
> toString() for strings and $ for serialization... i mean, how often do
> you perform each of those ? most ppl probably don't do as much
> serialization as string conversion. using $ for serialization would be a
> waste IMHO...
> could u give some more details about the "rexex" thingie ?

They were both simple "for instance"s thrown up on the spur of the moment.

My central point, which I believe suffices, is that conversion to string is ably handled already by toString()
functions. (Which are far more readable than a non-C-language-standard operator, as well.)

Arcane Jill wrote:
> For D, however, I plan something more ambitious in the long term - Unicode Regular Expressions - the definition of which is found in Unicode Technical Standard #18 at http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr18/. (Check it out if interested).

It would be nice to have general regex pattern search operating on
any array. Imagine searching patterns in a chess position array or ....

-- 
Helmut Leitner    leitner@hls.via.at
Graz, Austria   www.hls-software.com

It is a goof idea to make the string conversion a little easyer. For example, when writing a web application, then one must write a lot of string conversions.


But I must agree also, that every symbol is very valuable.
One option is to make the conversion automatic.
I mean
int foo = 5;
char[] bar = ""~foo;
Because usually it is something like:
return "my granny is "~toString(age)~" old";
it could be just:
return "my granny is "~age~" old";

It is easyer to write, but harder to read and to understand the code.

But it is an idea, isn't it?


In article <cg41l1$2u3m$1@digitaldaemon.com>, h3r3tic says...
>
>disclaimer: sorry if it has been mentioned before
>
>
>how about adapting the $ token to convert anything to a string ? like
>
>int foo = 5;
>char[] bar = $foo;
>
>// bar == "5"
>
>i dont think this would be a large problem to implement whilst BASIC dudes would instantly know it's sth bout strings :] in BASIC you read a$ as 'a string'.
>
>that's my vote in the $ war ;]

"Arcane Jill" <Arcane_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:cg4b5r$1o0$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> But I don't want $ used for toString() either. We've only got a few unused
ASCII
> symbols left, so I think we should save them until something /really/
important
> crops up.

I'm holding it in reserve for a special purpose. Whenever you use the $ in a D program, you have to send $1 to Digital Mars. I should patent that idea, after all, if Amazon got a patent for clicking a mouse button, why not? <g>

You could swritef(), which would be clear, and would probably be less abusive to the heap to boot!

"_" <__member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:cg5425$ds2$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> It is a goof idea to make the string conversion a little easyer. For example, when writing a web application, then one must write a lot of string conversions.
>
>
> But I must agree also, that every symbol is very valuable.
> One option is to make the conversion automatic.
> I mean
> int foo = 5;
> char[] bar = ""~foo;
> Because usually it is something like:
> return "my granny is "~toString(age)~" old";
> it could be just:
> return "my granny is "~age~" old";
>
> It is easyer to write, but harder to read and to understand the code.
>
> But it is an idea, isn't it?
>
>
> In article <cg41l1$2u3m$1@digitaldaemon.com>, h3r3tic says...
> >
> >disclaimer: sorry if it has been mentioned before
> >
> >
> >how about adapting the $ token to convert anything to a string ? like
> >
> >int foo = 5;
> >char[] bar = $foo;
> >
> >// bar == "5"
> >
> >i dont think this would be a large problem to implement whilst BASIC dudes would instantly know it's sth bout strings :] in BASIC you read a$ as 'a string'.
> >
> >that's my vote in the $ war ;]
>
>

Matthew wrote:
> You could swritef(), which would be clear, and would probably be less abusive to the heap to boot!

but it's still so C-ish. being able to do  "foo " ~ 5 ~ whatever ~ " bar" would be a GoodThing for projects like DSP.