π can't be used as a number because it already parses as an identifier (greek letter) and you can already use it as a sub name.

∞ does not, however, and simply emits a syntax error. You can use it as the delimiter for quote constructs, but that only applies after the beginning token of a quote construct. I'm very narrowly talking about changing perl's failure mode when it encounters this character to do something useful, since infinity is really a character that unambiguously indicates a mathematical value that also has an unambiguous floating-point encoding.

I'd be happy to see many more codepoints given language functionality, if they are unambiguous symbols that imply unambiguous scalar values. I can't name any others offhand. (Mathematicians really ought to stop stealing greek letters for things. I mean it's not like they were using mechanical tools with a limited range of symbols when they started this stuff... they could draw anythign they wanted. And, Greek is still an active language! not a dead one like Latin...)

In reply to Re^4: Unicode infinity by NERDVANA
in thread Unicode infinity by NERDVANA

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.