c2lang
Force parentheses use for same-priority expressions
force use of parenthesis for unclear expressions:
Yes this would help a lot. It is also a good alternative to changing the order of priority for the counter-intuitive choices in the C language, that have been kept in Java, Javascript and many more recent popular languages
a < b < c
This should evaluate as (a < b) < c, which does not make much sense.
An alternative would be to add new semantics such as (a < b) & (b < c), evaluating a, b and c once and only once. This would be very handy and allow multiple combinations of < and <= in the same expression. Of course the same should work for > and >= in combinations.
a & 7 + 1
For historical reasons, this evaluates as a & (7 + 1) in C, C++, C#, Java, Kotlin, Scala, Javascript, Perl...
Fixing this historical oddity by changing the order of priority is problematic as it complicates the porting of code from other languages. These expressions should be marked as errors with an explicit message such as
ambiguous operator precedence requires parentheses
a & 7 + 1
^ ~~~~~
As an additional benefit, the expressions in the C backend would no longer require extra parentheses.
An alternative would be to add new semantics such as
(a < b) & (b < c)
Everyone who does this to C-like languages ends up regretting it.
An alternative would be to add new semantics such as
(a < b) & (b < c)Everyone who does this to C-like languages ends up regretting it.
Then it is a bad idea.
Do you have pointers? Does any other language support such a thing ?
I know of indie languages that did experiment with this. I don't recall the exact problems, but it was ambiguities and weirdness when combined with other operations. Also, from a C point of view it looks very foreign.