Foster Gareth wrote:

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What's wrong with: std::for_each ( as.begin , as.end() , bool some_function_keyword(A& a) { return a.wee() & SOME_FLAG; } );

I think the previous poster (whos comments where appreciated) implied that while some languages (he mentioned Lisp and Perl I think, and I mentioned Java) could/do support this, C++ would struggle to. It would make things hairy for the compiler because a function definition is not preceeded by any keyword.

A normal function, no, but I believe (as I should, I wrote it! :) that this syntax shouldn't have any problems. The keyword, (for the sake of argument, 'inline') in place of where a function name would be in a function definition, means an expression returning a type that the function call syntax is legal on. (In this case, say, 'bool(A&)', for lexically binding functions (where it refers to objects in it's enclosing scope), 'inline', as it would behave like a functor) Having statements inside an expression is a New Thing for C++, though. What happens if you declare another inline function inside your inline function, and return it as the result? (function composition) A lot of kick-ass functional programming, thats what!

I think you can also do things a bit like this in java ... Interesting perhaps that there is a keyword involved in this case, would this still bog down compilers so much as to outweight the advantages of the sytax style (assuming there are any, I'm happy to be argued out of thiking this kind of coding is neat).

button_click_event.set_handler ( new class : public button_click_event_handler { void on_click() { std::cout << "anon_class::on_click() : printing wee" << std::endl; } } );

Java (recently) has 'Anonymous Classes', which are kind of cool, but syntaticly obese for most inline functions... Never used them myself, though.

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I don't know what a good function keyword name would be. Obviously: fn, function, lambda are in common use everywhere (and fn is too short for a C++ keyword! :D) Reuse 'inline'?

I suppose inline would make sense, but it might be a bit of a hack to have it used in two senses. I wonder if you can do this stuff in Delphi, they have a function keyword.

Well, so is 'template', 'typename', 'class' (sorta), (famously) 'static', and soon to be 'auto', so no biggy there. Anyway, inline is used far less nowadays, (although not as little as auto :D) since compilers are normally better than programmers at picking inline'able functions.

Thesaurus :)

" function

noun

1. The proper activity of a person or thing: job, purpose, role, task. See do/not do. 2. A large or important social gathering: affair, celebration, festivity, fete, gala, occasion, party, soiree. Informal do. Slang bash. See group, work/play.

verb

1. To react in a specified way: act, behave, operate, perform, work. See action/inaction. 2. To perform a function effectively: go, operate, run, take, work. See thrive/fail/exist. 3. To perform the duties of another: act, officiate, serve. See do/not do, substitute. "

Cheers for the responses anyway,

Gaz

The last thing C++ needs is another keyword ;)