[swift-evolution] ? suffix for <, >, <=, >= comparisons with optionals to prevent subtle bugs

[Al Skipp]

Just to add further salt, (or perhaps more appropriately, sugar) to optional chaining, it's not just map, it’s also flatMap, as and when required. Here’s a very silly example demonstrating it:

enum Hat { case Cap, Stetson, Helmet }

struct Pet { let age: Int, hat: Hat? } // a pet might wear a hat?!

struct Person { let name: String, pet: Pet? }

let p = Person(name: "Burt", pet: Pet(age: 10, hat: .Stetson))

(p.pet?.hat).dynamicType // Optional<Hat>.Type
p.pet.map { $0.hat }.dynamicType // Optional<Optional<Hat>>.Type
p.pet.flatMap { $0.hat }.dynamicType // Optional<Hat>.Type


This topic is going somewhat off-piste, so I’ll stop now!

Al


> On 10 Dec 2015, at 18:40, thorsten at portableinnovations.de wrote:
> 
> Interesting stuff indeed!
> 
>> Am 10.12.2015 um 19:21 schrieb Al Skipp <al_skipp at fastmail.fm <mailto:al_skipp at fastmail.fm>>:
>> 
>> Interesting stuff!
>> 
>> It did confuse me too, as I was expecting your initial code sample to work. My understanding is that ‘?’ is syntactic sugar for ‘map’ in this context. Anything following the ‘?’ is inside the Optional context.
> 
> That is a great insight! Of course, ?. is map! That does make sense! And using parentheses to mark the end of the Optional context introduced by ?. makes sense, too.
> 
> Thanks, Greg and Al!
> 
> -Thorsten

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