From: avi@...4.com (Avi Bryant)
Date: 2002-06-06T17:42:27+09:00
Subject: Re: Pascal-like 'with' statement?

Philip Mak <pmak@animeglobe.com> wrote in message news:<20020606002438.GA9947@trapezoid.interserver.net>...
> Is there something like Pascal's with statement? I'd like to turn this
> code:
> 
> Cfg = OpenStruct.new
> Cfg.host = 'localhost'
> Cfg.user = 'shoujoai'
> Cfg.database = 'shoujoai'
> 
> into something like this:
> 
> Cfg = OpenStruct.new
> with Cfg do
> 	host = 'localhost'
> 	user = 'shoujoai'
> 	database = 'shoujoai'
> end

My favorite solution to this is Smalltalk's cascades: end a method
call with a semicolon, and you can chain more calls to the same
receiver.
So a Ruby equivalent might look like

Cfg = OpenStruct.new
Cfg.host= 'localhost';
   .user= 'shoujoai';
   .database= 'shoujoai'

Or, in more Smalltalky style,

Cfg = OpenStruct.new.host('localhost');
                    .user('shoujoai');
                    .database('shoujoai');
                    .yourself

One nice property of this last style is that the whole thing becomes a
single expression, suitable for, say, putting in a return statement
without even using a local variable.

Matz, is there room for this in the parser? ;-)