Hi,

the @ method is not specific to Squeak. I guess it has been included in the earliest versions of Smalltalk already.

I don't know about any other Squeak-specific syntax (apart from arrays).

If you're concerned about portability of your code to other Smalltalk dialects then you might want to have a look at how the Seaside project handles it. They have some tool that finds problematic code.

Cheers

Matthias

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 10:43 PM, Mark Volkmann mark@ociweb.com wrote:

I know that the syntax for literal and dynamic arrays is specific to Squeak. Is the @ method in the Number class for creating Point objects specific to Squeak? Is there any other syntax that is specific to Squeak?

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Mark Volkmann

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Beginners mailing list Beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners

Mark Volkmann a écrit :

I know that the syntax for literal and dynamic arrays is specific to Squeak. Is the @ method in the Number class for creating Point objects specific to Squeak? Is there any other syntax that is specific to Squeak?

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Mark Volkmann

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Beginners mailing list Beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners

No @ is not specific. it was already a binary message in Smalltalk-80 like + or * and should be found in every dialect.

Squeak has one major extension {1+1. 2*3.} for creating arrays somehow equivalent to (Array with: 1+1 with: 2*3)

Plus the ability to use more than 2 binary characters to form a binary message, see implementors of ==>

Plus the ability to use left arrow as an assignment, which was the only assignment form in original st80, but that has been abandonned by "modern" implementation. Unfortunately, in ASCII the leftArrow code correspond to the ugly underscore...

Squeak also has several documented and undocumented extensions about interpreting literals.

Example of extensions: reading a Float in another base than 10: 2r0.1e10 Note that the exponent is interpreted in base 10, not 2

One ugly example: doubling the minus sign -10r-2

One ANSI recommended but not smalltalkish: separating minus sign and number with spaces:

- 2

note that it is interpreted differently in a literal array, one more reason i do not like it: #( - 2 )

Some bizarre literal symbols which are not really documented and likely to fail in any other dialect: ##x #12 #) #. #" i am a #x symbol "x # x "me too" #(#)# ) #()# :). invent your own...

But in practice, i doubt anyone use such construct and write unportable code (not guaranteed to survive in next Compiler implementation).

Nicolas