Re: '=' in variable names

[hanche@ams.sunysb.edu (Harald Hanche-Olsen)]

Paul> is there any reason, given use of PROTECT_ENV, to disallow '=' from
Paul> appearing in variable names?

I sure hope not.  I don't think any character should be disallowed
from appearance in variable names.  For example, in connection with my
built-in regexp primitive, I like to make the regular expression name
a variable whose value is a reference to the compiled regexp.  So I
could easily end up with a variable named '/^([^=]+)=(.*)/'.

Besides, to quote an old exchange

Harald> associative arrays

Paul> which are, imho, a proper subset of first-class environments, which
Paul> will probably happen in post-1.0 es.

For this to be useful, we should definitely not disallow any
characters (other than the null character, which we can't use
anyway).

- Harald