[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 318: Decorators last before colon

[David Eppstein]

In article <200404052209.i35M9m606023 at guido.python.org>,
 Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:

> > presumably the parser could handle this syntax if "as" were a keyword. 
> 
> Not really.  The parser is really dumb, it han only handle one
> alternative starting with a particular token at any point.  Since '['
> can already start an expression and an expression is a valid
> statement, anything else also starting with '[', even if it isn't a
> valid expression, cannot be accepted.  You may be thinking of Yacc,
> which has much more liberal rules.
> 
> --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

Ok, then how about
    <decorator>
    def ...
?

'<' can't start an expression or statement currently, can it?

-- 
David Eppstein                      http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/
Univ. of California, Irvine, School of Information & Computer Science