However, where C provides a string concatenation function, at the moment, L provides an operator for string concatenation: .
Overloading . in this way (so that the whitespace around it is syntactically meaningful) causes a few pain points.
E.g., where -> (which, at least in C, is equivalent to . but dereferencing its left argument before access) can be spaced however the user would like but . cannot be. Or, what happens when whitespace exists on one side of . but not the other?
I would propose one of two things:
Use an alternative operator (e.g., $$, >< or ##; the latter might be good since C programmers already associate it with concatenation of a sort).
Do not require an operator for string concatenation at all; L already allows for concatenation of string literals, why not just concatenate all adjacent strings?
Like C, L concatenates adjacent string literals.
However, where C provides a string concatenation function, at the moment, L provides an operator for string concatenation:
.Overloading
.in this way (so that the whitespace around it is syntactically meaningful) causes a few pain points.E.g., where
->(which, at least in C, is equivalent to.but dereferencing its left argument before access) can be spaced however the user would like but.cannot be. Or, what happens when whitespace exists on one side of.but not the other?I would propose one of two things:
$$,><or##; the latter might be good since C programmers already associate it with concatenation of a sort).