[150] in java-interest
Re: String concatenation operator
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (James Cownie)
Tue May 30 12:12:27 1995
Date: Tue, 30 May 1995 09:30:43 +0000
From: jim@meiko.co.uk (James Cownie)
To: java-interest@java.Eng.Sun.COM
There's been a bunch of discussion here on the subject of the string
concatenation operator, and, in particular whether the choice of the
character '+' is a good one. (And more to the point, whether the high
operator precedence which results from choosing '+' is good).
However no one has yet pointed out that ANSI C already has a (rather
limited) string concatenation operator. I can't give you the character
to which this operator is bound, since there isn't one ! It exists in
the rule that "... any sequence of adjacent character string literal
tokens are concatenated into a single multibyte character sequence."
In other words placing two character string literals next to each
other concatenates them.
I haven't checked whether Java already implements this rule, or
not. In as much as it follows C it should do. If so, (and following
the rule that Java is just like ANSI C with suitable sympathetic
extensions), it seems reasonable to propose an extension of this empty
operator to non-literal strings. Since the operator is so
visually insignificant it also makes a lot of sense to give it a very
low operator precedence (as seems desirable).
(Of course parsing this may prove amusing !)
-- Jim
James Cownie
Meiko Limited Meiko Inc.
650 Aztec West 130C Baker Avenue Ext.
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Phone : +44 1454 616171 +1 508 371 0088
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E-Mail: jim@meiko.co.uk or jim@meiko.com
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