Re: function call as lvalue

[Richard Hundt <richardhundt@...>]

Alexander Sorockin wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I guess the most likely answer to this question is 'No', but just in case. Is there a way to implement in C a function call as an lvalue? Basically, I want my Lua program to be able to do something like this:
>
>     m = mymessage.create()
>     m.byte(1).bits(2, 3) = 2

No :) Well, not without hacking the Lua sources, since that doesn't make 
it past the parser, so it's not supported syntax.

> I know I can implement something like this:
>
>     m.byte(1).bits(2, 3).set(2)
>
> or this:
>
>     m.byte[1].bits[2][3] = 2
>
> But the former looks more elegant to me :)

I'd do

	m.byte(1).bits(2, 3, ...)

where the last parameters are replacements, but if you really want to 
index using ranges you could try:

	m.byte(1).bits[{2, 3}] = 2

with the cost of creating and throwing away a table (and of course 
having "bits" be a table with a __call metamethod, instead of a function).

-Rich