<div dir="ltr">I tend towards -1 for multiple reasons:<div><ul><li>It has little value for local variables. In most cases you want to use the value you assign to a local variable and assigning it to an optional variable would require a subsequent unwrapping. In most cases where local variables are involved &quot;var x = y ?? z&quot; is satisfying as it creates a non-optional value iff z is non-optional.<br><br></li><li>It seems to be a rare use case that you set a value of an optional property which is currently nil and without also using that value directly within the same context. Quickly checking my Swift apps reveals only very little such use cases.<br><br></li><li>The remaining cases could expressed like &quot;object.property = object.property ?? …&quot; or using &quot;if object.property == nil { … }&quot;.<br>While it is true that variable and property name could be very long, this is an unlikely case of an already rare case which decreases the value of the proposed assignment operator even further.<br><br></li><li>Most important though is that such an optional assignment operator would work differently from all other assignment operators. The right operand would never be executed if the variable being assigned is already non-nil. This will likely be unexpected for a lot of developers who expect similar behavior like in all other assignments.</li></ul></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 1:39 AM, James Campbell via swift-evolution <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" target="_blank">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Can you guys give me tips on how to improve this PR <a href="https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/pull/63" target="_blank">https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/pull/63</a> first time writing a proposal or anything to do with a language. Let me know if there are points I missed.</div><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 12:26 AM, James Campbell <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:james@supmenow.com" target="_blank">james@supmenow.com</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">On second thoughts, I&#39;m preparing one :)</div><div><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 12:24 AM, James Campbell <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:james@supmenow.com" target="_blank">james@supmenow.com</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Cool would be happy for you to do it :)  if you time, almost night here so :) but happy for you to quote me in the proposal.<div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 12:17 AM, Jacob Bandes-Storch <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:jtbandes@gmail.com" target="_blank">jtbandes@gmail.com</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Would there be any caveats in introducing something like this, given the raciness of the operator? I guess it&#39;s not really a big deal — the other compound assignment operators (+=, -=, etc.) have the same problem.<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">I&#39;m not hearing much argument; sounds like many are in favor. I&#39;d be happy to flesh out my radar into a &quot;??=&quot; proposal this evening, or someone else can do it if they&#39;d like.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><span><font color="#888888"><br clear="all"><div><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Jacob<br></div></div></div></div></font></span><div><div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 4:12 PM, Jordan Rose <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:jordan_rose@apple.com" target="_blank">jordan_rose@apple.com</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div>It&#39;s possible that <a href="https://github.com/apple/swift/blob/master/docs/TransparentAttr.rst" target="_blank">@_transparent</a> is handled early enough in the compiler that we actually would get this behavior. I&#39;m not sure, though.</div><div><br></div><div>+1 from me whether or not didSet is always called, though. &quot;a = a ?? b&quot; always calls didSet anyway.</div><span><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div>Jordan</div></font></span><div><br></div><div>P.S. There&#39;s nothing particularly useful in the Radar, except that together with the dups there are three suggested spellings: &quot;=?&quot;, &quot;?=&quot;, and &quot;??=&quot;. My vote is with Brent for &quot;??=&quot;.</div><div><div><br><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Dec 15, 2015, at 15:26 , James Campbell via swift-evolution &lt;<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" target="_blank">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>&gt; wrote:</div><br><div><div dir="ltr" style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px">:) Wasn&#39;t expecting it to be trivial. but yeah if it could somehow be short circuited so didSet, willSet isn&#39;t called when there is a value already. that would be awesome.<div><br></div><div>Could the willSet, didSet behaviour  be tied to the = behaviour ?  in your example above the operation ultimately cascades into a = operation. </div><div><br></div><div>Same with operations such as *= or /= ultimately it has to do a = operation to set the new calculated value.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra" style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 11:23 PM, Jacob Bandes-Storch<span> </span><span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:jtbandes@gmail.com" target="_blank">jtbandes@gmail.com</a>&gt;</span><span> </span>wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">I agree that would be nice. Just pointing out that it&#39;s nontrivial. If you implement this custom operator today, you get different behavior.<div class="gmail_extra"><span><font color="#888888"><br clear="all"><div><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Jacob<br></div></div></div></div></font></span><div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 3:21 PM, James Campbell<span> </span><span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:james@supmenow.com" target="_blank">james@supmenow.com</a>&gt;</span><span> </span>wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">If it has a value already the nit wouldn&#39;t call anything as it technically hasn&#39;t been set. Only if it already has a value does it try and set something in which case the didSet is called :)</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div>On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 11:16 PM, Jacob Bandes-Storch via swift-evolution<span> </span><span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" target="_blank">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>&gt;</span><span> </span>wrote:<br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div><div dir="ltr">One possible caveat is with custom setters.<div><br></div><div>If &quot;a&quot; already has a value, does &quot;a ??= b&quot; call the custom setter/willSet/didSet, or does it see the nil and short-circuit?</div><div><br></div><div>This can be implemented today:</div><div><br></div><div>   <span> </span>func ??=(inout lhs: T?, @autoclosure rhs: () -&gt; T?) { if lhs == nil { lhs = rhs() } }</div><div><br></div><div>However, the use of &quot;inout&quot; will always cause the didSets to be triggered at the call site, when just using if-statements instead wouldn&#39;t have done so.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Jacob<br></div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div>On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 3:10 PM, Brent Royal-Gordon via swift-evolution<span> </span><span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" target="_blank">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>&gt;</span><span> </span>wrote:<br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div><span>&gt; I think that the existing syntax for “??” handles this need fairly well without requiring an additional assignment operator:<br>&gt;<br>&gt;       a = a ?? []<br><br></span>When the variable is `a`, sure. When it’s `scoreboardViewController.selectedScoreboard`, not so much.<br><br>+1 from me, though I prefer the `??=` spelling to match the `??` operator more closely.<br><span><font color="#888888"><br>--<br>Brent Royal-Gordon<br>Architechies<br></font></span></div></div><div><div><br><span>_______________________________________________<br>swift-evolution mailing list<br><a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" target="_blank">swift-evolution@swift.org</a><br><a href="https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution</a><br></span></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></div><img src="https://u2002410.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/open?upn=xV0JY-2FdZMnUMvSFtZnLiBPRTDDOSQf3-2FpH33HYOlBxHCmoqblRPu3QCZ5XRZruwnZ-2BGlsSXS7XHFBVRQTA-2B5NKBPecSkEMiEKqvTO5Loxd1XRhCgv-2BUMspC3PpyoJKT32QJ8AjHhSDZoG8JxbSxNRa0gU66lqARiwCJSzRUqw9vcSIIUcROAn9fZ1PyPletwh1fvNW7gUOt2JnzR-2FY7Cea7ouGlsomTcq5O1idJnkvA-3D" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" style="min-height:1px!important;width:1px!important;border-width:0px!important;margin:0px!important;padding:0px!important"><span> </span><br><span>_______________________________________________<br>swift-evolution mailing list<br><a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" target="_blank">swift-evolution@swift.org</a><br><a href="https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution</a><br><br></span></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><span><div><br></div>--<span> </span><br><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="font-size:16px;line-height:19.2px"></span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> Wizard</span><br></div><div><a href="mailto:james@supmenow.com" target="_blank">james@supmenow.com</a></div><div><a href="tel:%2B44%207523%20279%20698" value="+447523279698" target="_blank">+44 7523 279 698</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></span></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>--<span> </span><br><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="font-size:16px;line-height:19.2px"></span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> Wizard</span><br></div><div><a href="mailto:james@supmenow.com" target="_blank">james@supmenow.com</a></div><div><a href="tel:%2B44%207523%20279%20698" value="+447523279698" target="_blank">+44 7523 279 698</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><img src="https://u2002410.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/open?upn=ZEz4qHYnXhPr3bBPu-2FxP4tN3HfWKL-2FtJpqkQ0gkOVSABLoYxt-2BlrZpsND7lrKQYYppUVdpvXWp7hXpbAmPQ8h0pggR4LKcAbJRn3Fj1czpatT3DWRw2cYCXCkH6dxPT5JXzIDNynoUqXIEH7Vg2XIBWBpanrFtn-2FUz0bVivgbCWpNwczX6-2FViUfcv9haX6wdmSMJmqQeTDagYNmQsalAPRd9Dk02HRgtzuAQiKfsO6A-3D" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;min-height:1px!important;width:1px!important;border-width:0px!important;margin:0px!important;padding:0px!important"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline!important"><span> </span>_______________________________________________</span><br style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline!important">swift-evolution mailing list</span><br style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px"><a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px" target="_blank">swift-evolution@swift.org</a><br style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:1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