a +"b" compiles to a(+"b")

[STRd6]

It may be my expectations that are to blame, but I would expect this to compile to:

a + "b"

or something equivalent. The prefix + operator and function call are surprising.

[TrevorBurnham]

This behavior definitely feels weird coming from most languages (in Scala, for instance, I believe the preferred String concatenation style is a +"b"+ c), but +"b" in JavaScript is actually a valid way of saying "Evaluate "b" as a number." Check it out:

$> +"b"
NaN
$> +"1000"
1000
$> +"0.5"
0.5

Again, that's just JavaScript—CoffeeScript simply keeps the behavior the same. So given that +"0.5" is a number, and a 0.5 means a(0.5), I hope you can see why a +"0.5" being a(+"0.5") is actually pretty natural (though not especially useful).

Of course, you're probably aware that the preferred string concatenation style in CoffeeScript, as in Ruby, is

"#{a}b"   # a + "b"

[satyr]

a + "b" is invalid JavaScript if a is anything other than a string

Nope?

[STRd6]

Hi Trevor, thanks for the response.

I'm aware of the unary + operator, but in plain JS it's not space sensitive.

a = "foo"
a +"b" // => "foob"

Though a workaround in CoffeeScript is to write it thusly:

a + "b"

Or

a+"b"

As for the string interpolation, I definitely prefer to use that where possible, but I primarily use CoffeeScript from filters within my Rails application so the Ruby interpolation overrides it.

[TrevorBurnham]

@satyr Sorry, that last part was posted by mistake. Corrected.

Bummer about the filters, STRd6. That didn't occur to me when we were debating the string interpolation syntax. Maybe %{...} would've been better after all.

Of course, another syntactic option would be for you to write a function:

interp = (args...) -> args.join ''
interp a, "b"   # equivalent to a + "b"

[gchlodzinski]

I posted a new similar report but I've noticed that similar one is already reported.

I am using coffeescript for a large javascript project since August. We ended up using 0.9.4 for some time. Today I did some verifications if we can safely upgrade do 1.0 and I this is the first issue that I discovered (and it was compiling properly under 0.9.4):
a=b +c compiles into a = b(+c)
Of course a=b+c or a=b + c works well.

I am not sure if consider this as a bug (there are reasons when space character is treated as start of function call) but IMO coffeescript compiler should detect expressions as an exception and it was doing so in 0.9.4.

[satyr]

$ irb
>> p +1
1
=> 1
>> p + 1
NoMethodError: undefined method `+' for nil:NilClass

[gchlodzinski]

@satyr. I am not sure if I understood your point (having great respect for your contribution to coffeescript) but my point is that:
irb(main):009:0> p=1
=> 1
irb(main):010:0> p +1
=> 2

but in 1.0 coffeescript:
p +1 will compile into p(+1)
which IMO is wrong.

edit: I got it now - I keep forgetting about p as a puts shortcut.

[satyr]

p=1

Unlike JS, Ruby has separate namespaces for methods and variables.

p as a puts shortcut

http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Kernel.html#M001409

[jashkenas]

I'm afraid that the current behavior is the correct fix. With +, as you demonstrate, it's a bit unintuitive, but with -, it's totally necessary. For example:

squareRootOf -1

In CoffeeScript, the above must parse as squareRootOf(-1) and not as squareRootOf - 1, for any of the implicit function calls to make any sense.

[TrevorBurnham]

Since folks are still talking about this, here's a concrete example of why this is useful:

roundedNum = Math.floor +getUserInput()

It wouldn't feel very CoffeeScript-y to require parentheses there, now would it?

[satyr]

a concrete example

Except that the + is redundant (Math.floor implies ToNumber).

[TrevorBurnham]

Well, OK, good point:

roundedNumPlusOne = Math.floor +getUserInput() + 1

[odf]

Is this mentioned in the documentation yet? I think Coffee's behaviour is perfectly sensible here, but very surprising if one's not used to it. Unlike the block structure via indentation thing, which even after years of Python programming I'm still not too happy about, this is actually a use of significant white space that I can get behind. In fact, a+b, a+ b and a + b all compile to a + b. Only a +b, the one with the + clearly associated to the second term, is compiled to a(+b).

[TrevorBurnham]

Added to the FAQ under Grammar.