Syntax sugar to test equality

[ryanprior]

I find myself writing this kind of function a lot:

let kind = "target kind"
records |> Array.select((record : MyRecordType) { record.kind == kind })

If we had a syntax sugar such as: .property=(val, type) then I could clarify it as such:

records |> Array.select(.kind=(kind, MyRecordType))

More general solution: function composition operator?

If we had a function composition operator (suppose we call it ||>) and a generic equality function (suppose it's Object.eq) then I could rewrite the function as:

records |> Array.select(.kind(MyRecordType) ||> Object.eq(kind))

...which is almost as nice as the syntax sugar, and much more general.

While I'm making wishes

Mint knows the type of records at compile-time: it's an Array(MyRecordType). That makes me think it could be possible to propagate that to .kind, making a hypothetical function real pithy:

records |> Array.select(.kind=(kind))
// or...
records |> Array.select(.kind ||> Object.eq(kind))

[gdotdesign]

Thanks for opening this issue 🙏

I think it is a good opportunity for a helper function:

fun mapEq(value : b, function: Function(a, b)) : Function(a, Bool) {
  (item : a) { function(item) == value }
}

records 
|> Array.select(mapEq(kind, .kind(MyRecord)))
|> Array.map(.kind(MyRecord))

There could be a package with a module with a bunch of these helper functions.

A working example here: https://mint-lang.com/sandbox/UPQfBJi5vWzNVA

---

• Syntax sugar: Personally, I don't want to introduce more syntax sugars. I had/have a hard time understanding Haskell, and I'm afraid if we add more Mint will be hard to understand as well.
• The type of field access (.kind) were optional before and basically was a syntax sugar for (item: {kind: a, ...}) { item.kind } and caused some type checking bugs. Maybe there is a way to make sure that we can resolve the type properly, I'll put in on the wishlist 🙂

[gdotdesign]

I moved this to a discussion since there wasn't anything actionable here.