[chuck-users] comma is and? undocumented feature

[ssalazar at CS.Princeton.EDU]

One pretty important use for me is in writing clear for loops that use 
multiple counter variables.  For example, suppose you have a loop like 
this:

for((0 => int i), (0 => int j); i < max_value; i++, 2 +=> j)
{
    // do stuff
}

Without this way of using the comma, the loop must be written like so:

0 => int j;
for(0 => int i; i < max_value; i++)
{
    // do stuff
    2 +=> j;
}

Okay, thats fine, and often functionally equivalent, but its less 
maintainable.  For example, you can't use the continue keyword in the 
loop, unless you also add the j += 2; part each time you continue.

Also, you can't really tell how the loop iterates just by looking at 
the first line. In the comma-enabled version, its easy to see that this 
loop iterates i by 1 up to max_value, and j by 2 up to max_value * 2.  
In the second version, you need to look at the end of the loop block in 
addition to any continue statements to see how the loop iterates--who 
cares for simple loops, but nasty with crazy nesting loops.

spencer

Quoting Kassen <signal.automatique at gmail.com>:

> 2008/6/28 Jukka Akkanen <jakkanen at mac.com>:
>
>> This seems to be similar to the comma operator in C, which lets you use
>> multiple comma-separated sub-expressions in a context where only a single
>> expression is allowed. An expression using the comma operator evaluates to
>> the value of the last sub-expression. Note that the comma operator is very
>> different from how && works.
>>
>>
> Got it.
>
> How and where is this useful?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Kas.
>