From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2007-12-20T15:37:04+09:00
Subject: Re: named captures assigning to local variables

David Flanagan wrote:
...
> My proposal (a patch is below) is to treat named capture assignment as a 
> new form of assignment. That is: allow regexp literals as lvalues in 
> assignment.  So instead of using =~, we use =.  The match is still 
> performed with =~, but because we use the assignment operator it is 
> clear that assignment is happening.  For example:
> 
>   /(?<firstchar>.)(?<secondchar>.)/ = 'foo'
>   firstchar   # => 'f'
>   secondchar  # => 'o'

Very nice. Since = is not an operator (and not a method), a certain 
amount of magic is acceptable (to me). Methods should just be methods.

...
> If regexp-based destructuring assignment is popular, this could be 
> extended to allow other kinds of literals as lvalues.  A scanf-style 
> format string, extended with names could be implemented:
> 
>    "%<x>d %<y>d" = "1 2"   # Works like x,y=1,2

IMO, the following makes more sense:

   "#{x} #{y}" = "1 2"

but loses the ability to specify conversion.

Another possibility:

   [x, y] = [1, 2]

as an alternate form of:

   (x, y) = [1, 2]

-- 
        vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407