I'm pretty new to Kotlin but I'd like to share a small proposal that could IMHO benefit the language. Its implementation should be simple.
According to the latest documentation the following assign operators are currently supported:
| Expression | Translated To |
|---|---|
| a += b | a.plusAssign(b) |
| a -= b | a.minusAssign(b) |
| a *= b | a.timesAssign(b) |
| a /= b | a.divAssign(b) |
| a %= b | a.modAssign(b) |
But in certain situations all you want to perform is a copy/assignment without a preceding arithmetic operation:
| Proposed Expression | Translated To |
|---|---|
| a := b | a.copyAssign(b) // or a.valueAssign(b) // or simply a.assign(b) |
This is unrelated to the standard assignment operator (=) that simply changes the object being referenced by the variable.
Hypothetical scenarios where it could be useful:
-
Copying Containers / clone-Into
tableA := tableB // tableA now has the same records as tableB
arrayA := arrayB // arrayA is still a separate object
-
Operations without temporary objects:
matrixA := matrixB * matrixC
where (matrixB * matrixC) does not yield a matrix object but an “operation” object that gets applied later during the := operator.
This second scenario is the main reason I came forward with this proposal.
Thank you for your time.