Proposal for new operators to python that add syntactic sugar for hierarcical data.

[Gerard Flanagan]

glomde wrote:
> i I would like to extend python so that you could create hiercical

[...]

>   # build a tree structure
>   root = ET.Element("html")
>   *!*root:
>      *!*head("head"):
>          *!*title("title):
>               *=*text = "Page Title"
>      *!*body("body"):
>               *=*bgcolor = "#ffffff"
>               *=*text = "Hello, World!"
>
>
>
> I think that with the added syntax you get better view of the html
> page.
> Repeating things dissapears and you get indentation that corresponds to
> the tree.
> I think it is very pythonic IMHO.
>
> It could be done quite generic. If  the variable, object after '*!*'
> must support append
> method and if you use  '*=*' it must support __setitem__
>
> Any comments?

I personally dislike the nested-indented-brackets type of code given in
other replies, and i think your suggestion has a certain appeal - 'What
you see is what you mean' .  But it's not Python.

You also repeat yourself:  head("head"), title("title"), body("body")

What about this:

# build a tree structure
root = ET.Element("html")
!root
    !head
        !title
if A is True:
            &text = "Page A"
else:
            &text = "Page B"
    !body
        &bgcolor = "#ffffff"
        &text = "Hello, World!"

mmm...yamlthon? yython...:-)

All the best

Gerard