Re: silly question: prefix vs postfix ops

On Mon, 3 Mar 2008 10:37:52 -0800 (PST), MattR wrote:


> This is more of a language question than a compiler question (and
> therefore should create a religious battle :) ), but I'm wondering if
> the answer has more to do with the compiler. Anyway, why are there
> prefix operators that could just as well be postfix? Why is it !a and
> not a!, or *a and not a* ?


There is no reason. For example in Ada * and & are both postfix:


      Ptr.all -- Dereference
      X'Access -- Gets a pointer to X


> I can understand the increment and
> decrement operators,


This applies only to the operators with side effects, which is a bad idea
anyway.


> and the & op but expressions like *a[i] would be
> a lot clearer if it were a[i]*, just read the operators from right to
> left.


Why not, you could have array indexing prefix or infix. In mathematics
indices are placed before, above, below, inside... where it pleases the
writer.


--
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

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