> I'm probably opening up a whole new can of worms here, but if we said
> that the following were both vector operators:
>
> ^ == intersection operator
> v == union operator
>
> then these could have potentially useful meanings on their *own* as set
> operators, as well as modifying other operators. For example:
>
> @a = (1,2,3);
> @b = (4,1,3);
>
> @a = @a ^ @b; # @a = (1,3);
> @a = @a v @b; # @a = (1,2,3,4);
Or is @a = (1,2,3,4,1,3) ?
No... I'm assuming two things:
1) that v (union) uniqifies the elements in its array, as does ^.
2) that the v (union) modifier includes elements that exist in either
the first set or the second set, and that ^ includes elements that exist
in both sets.
These are pragmatic operators; I've done this type of thing *exceedingly* often.
The behaviour you describe is the concatenation of the two sets. I can get that
for free by saying push(@a, @b), or @a = (@a, @b);
And since admittedly they are pragmatic, people are welcome to overload them.
But right now as it stands '@a v= @b' is nonsense; it might as well be put
to work.
Ed
(
ps - as an aside, are the apocalypses going to be backdated as changes to the
design come up? Or are the apocalypses just a first draft for more enduring
documentation?
)
