Re: [RFC] switch expression

On Sun, Mar 29, 2020, at 4:04 PM, Ilija Tovilo wrote: > > Having two syntaxes for one keyword is not a good idea, > > We're already doing that. What about classes vs anonymous objects? > Functions vs closures? > They're using the same keywords. There's no confusion. > > Ilija There's subtle and important differences there. An anonymous function is still a function, in that it is a routine that takes input and produces output. A closure is, technically, an anonymous function that has imported variables from its parent scope. Anonymous classes (not anonymous objects) are implemented as, legitimately, classes; they just have an arbitrary internal name. The object that results can be used exactly like any other object, by design. I don't believe that's the case here, however. switch is a language construct for a *statement*, which branches the flow of control of the program. What you're proposing is a language construct for an *expression*, which evaluates depending on internal logic to a different value. Those are sufficiently distinct that I agree they should have distinct keywords. Plus, the internal syntax is non-trivial to switch back and forth between (break vs not, etc.), so it is misleading for people to present them as two slight variants on the same thing; they're really quite distinct, and that's OK. My recommendation would be to just borrow Rust's keyword: $result = match ($var) { $expression => $expression; $expression => $expression; $expression => $expression; default => $expression; } --Larry Garfield