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Status Not under consideration
Workspace PL/I Compilers
Created by Guest
Created on Jun 8, 2016

Additional compound operators for reverse operations

Enterprise PL/I at some stage introduced the originating from C compound operators, i.e.

+=
-=
*=
/=

and quite justifiably added

**=
||=

All of them, lets generically use the term ?=, in essence "expand"

x ?= y ;

into

x = x ? y;

It might in some circumstances be advantageous to have three additional compound cut operators,

=-
=/
=||

that reverse the order of the operands, i.e. using the generic "=?" notation from above:

x =?y;

would "expand" to

x = y ? x;

and this obviously explains why such operators are not required (but could be added for completeness sake) for '+' and '*', and the proposer does not really see a case for a **= operator, although there might be one.

Idea priority Low
  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Jun 28, 2016

    this would add complexity (and easily misread statements) to the language for little benefit