From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@...>
Date: 2007-04-25T00:04:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Arrow operator with dash instead of equals (->)

On 4/24/07, Andrew Green <ndrw_grn@yahoo.com.mx> wrote:
>
> As you can see it's mainly declarative. However this part
>
>         |{ (ROOT->has_given_names).textBPV + " " + (ROOT->has_last_names).textBPV }|
>
> is read by our interpreter only as a string between a |{ and a }| .
>
> That string is then passed to the Ruby interpreter and is meant to be
> run (from within a specific context that our interpreter determines). In
> these bits we don't want just our language running about, of course, we
> want full-blown Ruby code with extensions that allow a programmer to
> refer to the graph traversal rules using a syntax similar to that used
> in the rule definitions that appear _outside_ the Ruby code blocks.

Rather than leaving the |{}| blocks entirely alone, you could
preprocess them to change the -> to something ruby will accept, and
then run the interpreter over the preprocessed string. Won't be a
trivial task, but should be easier than any of the alternatives.

martin