[Zope-dev] Re: simpler TALES. (was Re: TALES idea: tuple unpacking)

[Shane Hathaway]

Paul Winkler wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 02:06:13PM -0400, Shane Hathaway wrote:
> 
>>Evan Simpson wrote:
>>
>>>With prefixes, the simpler 
>>>"here/getSomeObject/call:/someAttribute" gets the job done.
>>
>>FWIW, I'd write this as "here/call:getSomeObject/someAttribute".  I 
>>suppose it's possible to support both.
> 
> 
> really? How? If you support evan's version, then yours means
> "call whatever 'here' refers to, and pass getSomeObject as an argument".

No.  I can see how you interpreted it that way, though.  "call:" is 
intended to be a method call, and Evan has provided a way to make it a 
function call also.  In either case, you never pass any arguments.  I 
see the expression "x/call:y" as "call the method named 'y' of 'x'".  If 
no 'y' is provided, as in "x/call:", it means "call 'x'".

>>One interesting difference is 
>>that my syntax says both "get an attribute" and "call it", while yours 
>>says only "call it".  Mine is a method call, while yours is a function call.
> 
> How would you pass arguments in your version?  I'd say that passing
> arguments accounts for a very large percentage of my need to use
> TALES python expressions.

If you need to pass arguments, use a Python expression.  Python 
expressions are not on trial.

If you need to pass exactly one argument, you can use a prefix that 
implies that.  "format:", as I've been using it, is one such prefix.

Shane