[xquery-talk] :=

[Ghislain Fourny]

Hi Joe,

Syntactically, ":=" is not an operator because it does not produce an
output sequence of items like "+" or "and" or "/". It is part of let and
group-by clauses (which produce tuples) as well as variable and context
item declarations (which contribute to the dynamic context).

>From a pedagogical perspective, I would simply call it a variable binding,
the important part being not to call it "assignment" to make clear that it
is a functional and declarative language.

I hope these 2 cents help!

Kind regards,
Ghislain


On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 1:01 AM Joe Wicentowski <joewiz at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I could've sworn that ":=" had a name like "binding operator," but as far
> as I can see from the XPath or XQuery specs, it gives no name or
> description to this symbol other than appearances in EBNFs for LetBinding,
> GroupingSpec, VarDecl, and ContextItemDecl -- as a literal ":=".
>
> Does ":=" really have no name or plain English description in the spec?
>
> If so, this is surprising given its prominence in the let clause.  Having
> one would certainly be very useful when teaching the language.
>
> Thanks,
> Joe
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