• Tesuji (24/24) Jun 19 2006 For pointers, using * and & for dereferencing seems ugly, a more interes...
• Carlos Santander (6/46) Jun 19 2006 Except that sometimes people wants to do pointer arithmetic.
• Stewart Gordon (6/19) Jun 26 2006

Tesuji <Tesuji_member pathlink.com> writes:

For pointers, using * and & for dereferencing seems ugly, a more interesting
syntax could be:

A* aPtr;
A instanceA;

to point aPtr to instanceA, instead of

<code> aPtr = &instanceA; </code>

write

<code> aPtr -> instanceA; </code>

and it reads "aPtr points to instanceA". This frees the pointer syntax up from
the * & operators, 
Using this syntax, one can eliminate the need for the dereferencing operator
(*), and use pointers directly with operators etc, i.e.

int i1, i2, i3;
int* p1, p2, p3;

p1 -> i1;
p2 -> i2;
p3 -> i3;

p3 = p1 + p2;

And this has the same effect as i1 = i2 + i3;
This would largely simplify the coding for containers, and allow a custom
container to do things like

myVector[3]++;

provided that the opIndex operator for MyVector returns a pointer. Also makes
the pointer behave much like C++ reference types.

Carlos Santander <csantander619 gmail.com> writes:

Tesuji escribió:
 For pointers, using * and & for dereferencing seems ugly, a more interesting
 syntax could be:
 
 A* aPtr;
 A instanceA;
 
 to point aPtr to instanceA, instead of
 
 <code> aPtr = &instanceA; </code>
 
 write
 
 <code> aPtr -> instanceA; </code>
 
 and it reads "aPtr points to instanceA". This frees the pointer syntax up from
 the * & operators, 
 Using this syntax, one can eliminate the need for the dereferencing operator
 (*), and use pointers directly with operators etc, i.e.
 
 int i1, i2, i3;
 int* p1, p2, p3;
 
 p1 -> i1;
 p2 -> i2;
 p3 -> i3;
 
 p3 = p1 + p2;
 
 And this has the same effect as i1 = i2 + i3;

Except that sometimes people wants to do pointer arithmetic.

In any case, since C does pointers in this way (like D), it's really unlikely 
Walter is going to change it (to give it any hope at all ;).)

 This would largely simplify the coding for containers, and allow a custom
 container to do things like
 
 myVector[3]++;
 
 provided that the opIndex operator for MyVector returns a pointer. Also makes
 the pointer behave much like C++ reference types.
 
 
 
 

-- 
Carlos Santander Bernal

Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> writes:

Tesuji wrote:
 For pointers, using * and & for dereferencing seems ugly, a more interesting
 syntax could be:
 
 A* aPtr;
 A instanceA;
 
 to point aPtr to instanceA, instead of
 
 <code> aPtr = &instanceA; </code>
 
 write
 
 <code> aPtr -> instanceA; </code>

<snip>

If you want Fortran, you know where to find it.

Moreover, the -> notation will just confuse people coming from C(++), 
where it has a completely different meaning.

Stewart.