Re^2: use feature 'postderef'; # Postfix Dereference Syntax is coming in 5.20

I don't think this is a good syntax. I would humbly suggest a better syntax is actually a new operator. Something like this:

But that does so much less than the proposed syntax, also it confuses assignment with dereferencing (dereferencing doesn't imply assignment)

Comment on Re^2: use feature 'postderef'; # Postfix Dereference Syntax is coming in 5.20

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^3: use feature 'postderef'; # Postfix Dereference Syntax is coming in 5.20 by einhverfr (Friar) on Nov 25, 2013 at 08:47 UTC
Ok, this is a fair concern. The question is what sort of syntax would work when, say, passing in an argument to a function. One could have implicit assignments in a unitary left hand operator for example, something like: `my $foo = somefunc(\= $bar);` This would be contextually equivalent to %$bar or @$bar depending on what $bar references. The idea would be it means "what ___ references" and that gets coerced into a list or array after that point. Of course in this context, it would be coerced into a list (of possibly only one value)... In short if the \= operator was overloaded so that it could be either binary or unitary (left-hand), then the problem goes away.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: use feature 'postderef'; # Postfix Dereference Syntax is coming in 5.20 by Anonymous Monk on Nov 25, 2013 at 10:56 UTC
In short if the \= operator was overloaded so that it could be either binary or unitary (left-hand), then the problem goes away. An even worse idea :)	[reply]
Re^5: use feature 'postderef'; # Postfix Dereference Syntax is coming in 5.20 by einhverfr (Friar) on Nov 26, 2013 at 09:34 UTC
If it is an even worse idea, then my conclusion is that this whole thing is a bad idea and we should just stick to the current dereference syntax, i.e. ${ $object->{foo} }.	[reply]