Re: factorial function/phase out postfix operators?

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> The ambiguity doesn't come from the mere existence of postfix
> operators. It comes from the fact that, when we lex the input, we
> can't tell whether a particular operator that we happen to encounter
> is prefix, infix, or postfix. So hard-coding, for example, a rule that
> '!' is always a postfix operator and anything else is never a postfix
> operator is sufficient to solve the key problems.

If we were willing to say that '!' could *only* be a postfix operator,
then maybe the ambiguity would go away. Or maybe it wouldn't; if
you're seriously proposing this, I think it'd be incumbent on you
to demonstrate that we could still simplify the grammar to the same
extent. But that will incur its own set of compatibility problems,
because there's no reason to assume that nobody has made prefix or
infix '!' operators.

In any case, it's hard to decide that that's a less klugy solution
than getting rid of postfix ops altogether. There's a reason why
few programming languages have those.

In general, I put this on about the same level as when we decided
to remove ';' and ':' as operators (cf 259489bab, 766fb7f70).
Somebody thought it was cute that it was possible to have that,
which maybe it was, but it wasn't really sane in the big picture.
And as I recall, the amount of pushback we got was nil.

regards, tom lane