Re: [boost] Boost.Format syntax

From: James Kanze (kanze_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-02-20 15:52:14

Karl Nelson <kenelson_at_[hidden]> writes:

|>  [snip]
|>  > > I think most programmers would expect it to give them the nth
|>  > > character of the formatted string.  But I'm just guessing about
|>  > > this.

|>  > Interesting.  I never looked at it this way.  I would suspect that
|>  > there would be very few cases where someone would get confused
|>  > about the meaning in this way.  However, if I'm wrong, it would be
|>  > a good argument against operator[].

|>  I would have expected that [] on a format gives access to a
|>  formatting specifications for argument #.

|>  Ie.  

|>      format_expr fmt("%d %s");

|>      fmt[0] gives "%d" 

|>  (Okay it is a bit confusing as printf starts from one.)

|>  I personally view operator [] as "indexing".  So foo[i][j] means
|>  "j-th of i-th of foo".

I suspect that that is what most programmers think of it as.  I'll admit
that I only thought of it as projection after reading Barton and
Nackman.  And that I tend to have a deep understanding of the lower
layer aspects, which may cloud my vision.

|>  I think the use of .with() or operator() has more merit.  
|>  But this is purely personal preference.

Fundamentally, I think that any choice of operator will involve personal
preference.  About the only real technical requirement is that it have a
strictly lower precedence than the four basic operators -- after that, I
could live with any of them, even if my personal preference is for
.with().

-- 
James Kanze                                mailto:kanze_at_[hidden]
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