Ian, Vincent, P1788
On 26 Jan 2012, at 12:48, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
Ian McIntosh wrote:
User defined literals define a function (or functions) to convert some
sequence of characters in a program that meet some defined syntax
representing a literal into the corresponding internal constant of the
specified type. The constant is not a function, but the conversion from
its external form to its internal form is defined by a function. It is
internally represented the same way a variable is and generally treated the
same way a variable is, except that it is not allowed to be changed. Maybe
1788 could use that approach, instead of defining constants as functions?
The way I see the P1788 text is that constants are regarded as
functions for the spec, but it is up to the language to decide
how they are handled.
I agree. Maybe I'm being naive but I don't see that the P1788 spec contradicts a language definition of constants as Ian describes. The concept of "variable", e.g., is beyond P1788's scope. P1788 just says a constant is a value defined purely by its name (denotation), needing no input arguments.
John Pryce