Index operators (e.g. obj[i]) have special overloads so that they hook assignment: obj[i] = rhs lowers to obj.opIndexAssign(rhs, i). Why not back-port this to dereferencing? *obj lowers to obj.opUnary!"*", which, to be assignable, must return by reference. Why not add opUnaryAssign(string op) which can hook, in principle, +obj = rhs, -obj = rhs, ~obj = rhs, *obj = rhs, ++obj = rhs, and --obj = rhs (of which I expect only *obj = rhs to be used regularly).

On Wednesday, 3 July 2024 at 10:43:14 UTC, Quirin Schroll wrote:

wouldnt +obj=rhs combined with "assignment returns" be ambiguous in some case?

idk why people use assignment returns, its incredibly backwards of sanity and im fuzzy on the syntax

On Wednesday, 3 July 2024 at 13:26:35 UTC, monkyyy wrote:

In the expression grammar, clearly +obj has precedence over =. The precedence table is here. The gist is:

1. Postfix operators (includes call (), index [], and member access .)
2. Prefix operators
3. Binary operators

There are exceptions, e.g. binary ! for templates is top, ^^ is stronger than unary prefix, and => has different precedence on the left and right, but for the most part, the 3-item list is accurate.