[swift-evolution] divisible-by operator

[Erica Sadun]

> On Apr 6, 2016, at 10:13 AM, Milos Rankovic via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> Checking for divisibility is very common:
> 
>     21 % 3 == 0 // true
> 
> In fact, this is such a common use of the `%` operator that the `== 0` side of the expression seems distracting in this use case. For quite a while now, I’ve been using a custom operator for this, which is steadily growing on me:
> 
>     21 %== 3 // true
> 
> … which also allows me to overload it for sequences:
> 
>     21 %== [7, 3] // true
> 
> (If I’m inadvertently misusing this mailing list to share such a minor idea, please tell me off so that I can learn not to do it again!)
> 

While modulo checks are common, I don't think that your proposed solution (%==) enhances readability or saves typing *to such extent* that it vastly improves over the existing art:

21 % 3 == 0 reads easily from left to right, is quick to type, is understood across many languages.

21 %== 3    saves a few spaces, is less immediately understandable (due to the visual overlap with `+=` and `-=`) and would be (as far as I'm aware of) unique to Swift.

I applaud the thinking and creativity but I would not support the proposal.

-- E

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