From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2003-03-21T11:20:27+09:00
Subject: Proposal: new operator: '<-' (for assignments)


Since we can't override '=' (and it's a good idea that we can't) it seems 
that it would be nice to have another overridable operator for assigning 
values in classes.  So, I'm proposing that we allow a new operator '<-' 
(less-than minus) which can be overridden to allow assignment, for 
example:

class Foo
  def initialize(value)
    @val = value
  end

  def <-(newVal)
    @val = newVal
  end
end

foo = Foo.new("this value")
....later...
foo <- "some new value"


Now of course, I could have allowed access to @val by declaring an 
attr_accessor, but in many cases I don't want to expose that information 
or make users of the class have to remember the name of the variable 
'val'.  It just seems much cleaner in many cases to have an assignment 
operator.  Up till now I've been overriding '<<' to do this, but now I've 
run into a case where I'd like to pass on operators to the underlying 
value (@val in the example above) using method_missing so the underlying 
value can be shifted (and since '<<' is overriden, that's kind of tough).

Thoughts?

Phil