Re: RFC 98 (v1) context-based method overloading

And what will aSub decide is it's context?

	@foo = (1, 2, 3, aSub)

If I have to write scalar(aSub) then I see no point in this RFC.

And why shouldn't the caller decide? What is the gain in having perl
do the dirty work.

<chaim>

>>>>> "ABH" == Ask Bjoern Hansen <[email protected]> writes:

>> =head1 ABSTRACT
>> 
>> The other way C++ allows you to overload a named function is
>> by return type.  This document is a companion piece to
>> a similarly named one about protoypes.  It replaces old Perl's
>> "wantscalar" and "wantarray" kluges, which can now be deprecated,
>> with a cleaner interface allowing decisions which are possible to
>> make at compile time to be made then.
>> 
>> =head1 DESCRIPTION
>> 
>> Defining multiple subroutines with both the same name and the same calling
>> interface that explicitly return items of differing types is now
>> allowed. subject to the following:
>> 
>> =over
>> 
>> =item compile-time
>> 
>> the return-type expectation of all method calls meaning to take advantage
>> of this feature must be clear from explicit type tags available at compile time.
>> 
>> =item what constitutes a context?
>> 
>> We are familiar with "scalar context" and "array context" from perl5 and
>> previous.  Perl6 gives us user-defined contexts as well as user defined
>> types or all sorts.  Any unique string can be a context, for the purposes
>> of context-based method overloading, and Perl will attempt to guess a
>> reasonable base class for the given "context."  Use of undeclared context
>> specifiers will of course generate warnings.


-- 
Chaim Frenkel					     Nonlinear Knowledge, Inc.
[email protected]				               +1-718-236-0183