| Re: IDL 8.0 compile_opt changes [message #69176 is a reply to message #69175] |
Sat, 19 December 2009 09:45   |
H. Evans
Messages: 18
Registered: December 2009
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Junior Member |
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On Dec 19, 5:16 pm, pp <pp.pente...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 19, 8:19 am, "H. Evans" <bloggs...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>> Another thought, will the new syntax contain more information about
>> the code itself (whether it is an array
>> or a method, etc.) it should be easier to downgrade new code to the
>> older syntax, shouldn't it? To me, the best formed language doesn't
>> overload its syntax.
>
>> In the new syntax the '.' would be overloaded, so some clever parsing
>> would be required to determine if the '.' was a method call (changed
>> to '->') or a structure field (leave it as '.').
>
>> Hmmmmm...is this really an improvement? Would we not be muddying the
>> waters with ambiguity again? It took long enough to move from the
>> overloading of the '()' where it was for both array subscripting and
>> function parameter delimiting.
>
>> H.
>
> It would only be ambiguous when the idl2 option is not used
> (explicitly or by default). With it, a.b is only a structure field of
> there are [], or it is being used as a variable. A function would
> require the (), and a routine could not appear in an expression.
>
> Which is why idl2 should be the new default, either always (option
> #1), or based on the file extension (option #5). That way, it would
> also be possible to have a translator that would generate code
> compatible with older versions, since it would find no ambiguities.
My point was that it would be a trivial parse to downgrade, as with
the conversion of '[' to '('. Requiring a check for the idl2 option in
the code first requires that the 'downgrade' software be much more
clever. The change from '->' to '.' syntax requires a fairly simple
substitution script. My main point is that the '.' syntax would become
overloaded and thus context sensitive. The conversion must, therefore,
also include context sensitivity.
H.
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