Evolution of smart matching

The semantics of the smart match (~~) operator, introduced in Perl 5.10.0, are undergoing major changes. They are justified partly by the divergence with Perl 6's smart match, and partly by the inconvenience of the current semantics.

The major change that drove all other ajdustments is that now, ~~ is no longer symmetrical, but the dispatch will be done based on the type of the matcher (the right hand side) only. The type of the matchee will be taken into account only in a second phase.

The loss of symmetry however allowed to introduce better distributivity (in the ~~ %hash and ~~ @array cases.)

Another consequence is that overloading the ~~ operator will be taken into account only when the object is on the right of the match. Allowing the matchee to invoke ~~ overload would interfere with the property of distributivity, notably in the $object ~~ @array case.

The full semantics can be checked out in the perlsyn man page in the smartmatch branch of the Perl 5 source repository. I consider those docs final (unless Larry invokes Rule One...)

I plan to do a short talk on the new smart match in Lisbon, at the next YAPC::EU -- more detailed than the braindump you're currently reading!

The implementation is still in progress. Tests, notably, are needed, if you want to help (because my tuits are quite short those days...)