<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Do you think in the future it might be possible to convert to strings? <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">For example, I am imagining a CoreData-like framework on the server (where there is no Objective-C), where I would like to get the type of the root object and keys forming the path. That way I can go to an object model, get the corresponding entity, and traversed relationships, and destination attribute. All that information (table name, table joins for the relationships traversed, column names, etc.) would then be used to construct the SQL.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Apr 6, 2017, at 12:37 PM, Douglas Gregor <<a href="mailto:dgregor@apple.com" class="">dgregor@apple.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">On Apr 6, 2017, at 9:31 AM, Sean Heber <<a href="mailto:sean@fifthace.com" class="">sean@fifthace.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">On Apr 6, 2017, at 11:19 AM, Douglas Gregor <<a href="mailto:dgregor@apple.com" class="">dgregor@apple.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><br class="">On Apr 6, 2017, at 8:13 AM, Ricardo Parada via swift-evolution <<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>> wrote:<br class=""><br class="">I agree, there's an analogy between strings and key paths, and in that regards the single quote would make sense. I would not complain. <br class=""></blockquote><br class="">The only analogy between strings and key-paths is that the existing Cocoa APIs for key-paths use strings. That’s not an analogy to hang language syntax on, because it’s relevance will fade quickly.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br class=""></blockquote><br class="">Why would it fade quickly? Do we expect the concept of keypaths to go away over time? If so, why are we even designing a syntax for keypaths?<br class=""></blockquote><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">The link between key-paths and strings will go away over time. The *only* reason anyone associates strings with keypaths is because Cocoa’s current key-paths are string-based. This proposal makes any string representation of key-paths an implementation detail that could be used for interoperability with Cocoa’s current system. There is no reason for a type-unsafe string representation to ever be in the user model.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">The core team discussed single quotes, and decided that we want to save them for something in the string/character realm.<br class=""></blockquote><br class="">Are they to be saved for something specific or is this just because a lot of languages use single quotes for character literals? Why is this association any more sacred than an association with Cocoa string keypaths?<br class=""></blockquote><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">Lots of languages use single quotes for character literals; we may want to bring them back for it.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">- Doug</span></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div></body></html>