User Defined Attributes

[Walter Bright]

On 11/6/2012 7:55 AM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> On 2012-11-06 16:39, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 11/6/2012 5:04 AM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>>> I agree, I a syntax like this would have been nicer:
>>>
>>> @mtype("key" : "value") int a; or @mtype(key : "value") int a;
>>> @mtype("value") int b;
>>> @mtype int c;
>>>
>>
>> Part of what I was trying to do was minimizing inventing new syntaxes. The
>>
>>     [ ArgumentList ]
>>
>> invents nothing new but the brackets. Your proposal is both a new
>> syntax, and it can only do key/value pairs - nothing else.
>
> It depends on how you look at it.
>
> * @mtype - is the same syntax as the current syntax for attributes
> * @mtype("key" : "value") - Uses the above in combination with the syntax for
> associative array literals
>
> How about this then:
>
> @mtype("foo", 3, "bar") int a;
>
> And have the argument list be optional? I really like to have a short nice
> looking syntax for the simple use cases, i.e.
>
> @mtype int b;
>

There's a lot more you can do with the ArgumentList syntax than associative 
arrays. Furthermore, there remains the problem of how mtype fits into the name 
scoping system.