Uniform function call syntax

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 10/9/09 00:23, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Jacob Carlborg"<doob at me.com>  wrote in message
> news:halgto$1kc0$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> In the first D conference there was some talk about uniform function call
>> syntax which allowed a.foo(x) and foo(a, x) to be interchangeable (just as
>> we have now with arrays), what happened do that? Will it still happen?
>>
>
> Yea, I find not having that to be a painful inconsistancy. Been hoping for
> that for a while.
>
>> Except for the mentioned advantages in the talk I've found another use for
>> it. When creating bindings to Objective-C it could be used to simulate
>> categories which otherwise is quite hard simulate and doesn't scale well.
>> The only way I found requires that the source is available of the class to
>> add the methods to.
>>
>> I poked around in the DMD sources I found that it's really easy to add,
>> just edit one line.
>
> Can you please post the file, line number, old line, new line, and dmd ver?
> Or submit a patch to bugzilla. That could be helpful for anyone who wants to
> look into this furthur.

I've submitted a patch to bugzilla: 
http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3382

>> However there is a problem it don't work for literals like 3.foo(), for
>> that I think that parser needs to be modified.
>>
>>
>> For those unfamiliar with Objective-C and categories: "A category allows
>> you to add methods to an existing class—even to one to which you do not
>> have the source",
>> http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/Articles/ocCategories.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30001163-CH20-SW1
>>
>
> Do you know if that actually affects the class itself (like adds an entry to
> the vtable or , or something like that)? If not, that sounds like what C#
> calls extension methods, which are just like what D does with arrays (except
> that you have to actually declare the function to be an extension method -
> which I've been kind of on the fence about as to whether I like that or
> not).
>
>