[Python-ideas] Null coalescing operators

Bruce Leban bruce at leban.us
Sun Sep 20 09:50:09 CEST 2015


On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 9:21 AM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:

> I forgot to think about the scope of the uptalk operator (i.e. what is
> skipped when it finds a None). There are some clear cases (the actual
> implementation should avoid double evaluation of the tested expression, of
> course):
>
>   a.b?.c.d[x, y](p, q) === None if a.b is None else a.b.c.d[x, y](p, q)
>   a.b?[x, y].c.d(p, q) === None if a.b is None else a.b[x, y].c.d(p, q)
>   a.b?(p, q).c.d[x, y] === None if a.b is None else a.b(p, q).c.d[x, y]
>
> This makes sense to me.


> But what about its effect on other operators in the same expression? I
> think this is reasonable:
>
>   a?.b + c.d === None if a is None else a.b + c.d
>

This is a bit weird to me. Essentially ?. takes precedence over a following
+. But would you also expect it to take precedence over a preceding one as
well? That's inconsistent.

c.d + a?.b === None if a is None else c.d + a.b
or
c.d + a?.b === c.d + None if a is None else c.d + a.b

I think that ?. ?[] and ?() should affect other operators at the same
precedence level only, i.e.,  each other and . [] and (). This seems the
most logical to me. And I just looked up the C# documentation on MSDN and
it does the same thing:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn986595.aspx


> It also shouldn't escape out of comma-separated lists, argument lists,
> etc.:
>
>   (a?.b, x) === ((None if a is None else a.b), x)
>   f(a?.b) === f((None if a is None else a.b))
>

Agree. It also should not escape grouping parenthesis even though that
might not be useful. It would be very weird if a parenthesized expression
did something other than evaluate the expression inside it, period.

(a?.b).c === None.c if a is None else (a.b).c === temp = a?.b; temp.c
(x or a?.b).c === (x or (None if a is none else a.b)).c

Yes, None.c is going to raise an exception. That's better than just getting
None IMHO.

--- Bruce
Check out my new puzzle book: http://J.mp/ingToConclusions
Get it free here: http://J.mp/ingToConclusionsFree (available on iOS)
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