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Groups > comp.lang.python > #61016

Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers?

Date 2013-12-04 13:32 +0100
From Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be>
Subject Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers?
References (4 earlier) <080d6a56-588b-425f-8968-8f77bc330427@googlegroups.com> <mailman.3546.1386147492.18130.python-list@python.org> <549180f1-fb98-4b59-b92f-5beceb1a6fb5@googlegroups.com> <mailman.3552.1386152954.18130.python-list@python.org> <68a2d20a-793f-4493-b856-c6c65617eb0d@googlegroups.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.python
Message-ID <mailman.3560.1386160340.18130.python-list@python.org> (permalink)

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Op 04-12-13 13:01, rusi schreef:
> On Wednesday, December 4, 2013 3:59:06 PM UTC+5:30, Antoon Pardon wrote:
>> Op 04-12-13 11:09, rusi schreef:
>>> I used the spaces case to indicate the limit of chaos. 
>>> Other characters (that
>>> already have uses) are just as problematic.
>>
>> I don't agree with the latter. As it is now python can make the
>> distinction between
>>
>> from A import B    and     fromAimportB.
>>
>> I see no a priori reason why this should be limited to letters. A
>> language designer might choose to allow a bigger set of characters
>> in identifiers like '-', '+' and others. In that case a-b would be
>> an identifier and a - b would be the operation. Just as in python
>> fromAimportB is an identifier and from A import B is an import
>> statement.
> 
> Im not sure what you are saying.
> Sure a language designer can design a language differently from python.
> I mentioned lisp. Cobol is another behaving exactly as you describe.
> 
> My point is that when you do (something like) that, you will need to change the
> lexical and grammatical structure of the language.  And this will make 
> for rather far-reaching changes ALL OVER the language not just in what-follows-dot.

No you don't need to change the lexical and grammatical structure of
the language. Changing the characters allowed in identifiers, is not a
change in lexical structure. The only difference in lexical structuring
would be that '-', '>=' and other similars symbols would have to be
treated like keyword like 'from', 'as' etc instead of being recognizable
by just being present.

And the grammatical structure of the language wouldn't change at all.
Sure a-b would now be an identifier and not an operation but that is
of no concern for the parser.

People would have to be careful to insert spaces around operators
and that might make the language somewhat error prone but that doesn't
mean the syntactical structure is different.

-- 
Antoon Pardon

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Thread

Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-03 09:14 -0800
  Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2013-12-03 12:38 -0500
  Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names
 not being valid identifiers? Dave Angel <davea@davea.name> - 2013-12-03 12:48 -0500
    Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-04 14:05 -0800
      Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with
 names not being valid identifiers? Dave Angel <davea@davea.name> - 2013-12-04 17:28 -0500
  Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2013-12-03 09:31 -0800
    Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-03 15:49 -0800
  Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? random832@fastmail.us - 2013-12-03 13:03 -0500
    Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-03 15:47 -0800
      Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2013-12-03 19:06 -0600
        Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-04 12:35 -0800
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-04 20:46 +0000
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Jerry Hill <malaclypse2@gmail.com> - 2013-12-04 15:58 -0500
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2013-12-04 13:02 -0800
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> - 2013-12-04 21:41 +0000
            Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-04 13:54 -0800
              Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> - 2013-12-06 14:07 +0000
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-06 08:51 -0800
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Rotwang <sg552@hotmail.co.uk> - 2013-12-07 00:47 +0000
            Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-04 14:13 -0800
              Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2013-12-04 15:09 -0800
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-04 15:57 -0800
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2013-12-04 16:26 -0800
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2013-12-04 20:17 -0500
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-12-04 21:58 -0500
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2013-12-04 19:05 -0800
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2013-12-05 07:56 +0000
      Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Tim Roberts <timr@probo.com> - 2013-12-03 21:45 -0800
        Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-12-03 22:31 -0800
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2013-12-04 01:57 -0700
            Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-12-04 02:09 -0800
              Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2013-12-04 11:29 +0100
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-12-04 04:01 -0800
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2013-12-04 13:32 +0100
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-12-04 05:02 -0800
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2013-12-04 20:57 +0100
              Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-04 21:33 +1100
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-12-04 03:27 -0800
              Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2013-12-04 05:25 -0600
              Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Jussi Piitulainen <jpiitula@ling.helsinki.fi> - 2013-12-04 13:30 +0200
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-04 22:40 +1100
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2013-12-04 07:56 -0800
              Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2013-12-04 19:43 -0700
                Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-12-04 20:48 -0800
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2013-12-04 19:27 -0500
            Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2013-12-04 20:03 -0500
        Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2013-12-04 01:12 -0800
        Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2013-12-04 08:23 -0500
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-04 13:00 -0800
        Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-04 12:07 -0800
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2013-12-04 12:22 -0800
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-04 20:55 +0000
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2013-12-04 13:00 -0800
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-12-04 17:11 -0500
            Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Piotr Dobrogost <p@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> - 2013-12-04 15:42 -0800
              Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-12-04 22:21 -0500
          Re: Why is there no natural syntax for accessing attributes with names not being valid identifiers? Rotwang <sg552@hotmail.co.uk> - 2013-12-05 01:50 +0000

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