[SR-8278] Syntax to disambiguate operators

[swift-ci]

Previous ID	SR-8278
Radar	None
Original Reporter	revolucent (JIRA User)
Type	Improvement

Additional Detail from JIRA

Votes	0
Component/s	Compiler
Labels	Improvement, LanguageFeatureRequest
Assignee	None
Priority	Medium

md5: c6afa3d80664e636a7dd953616f58088

relates to:

• SR-895 Cannot do a qualified import of an operator
• TF-1065 Consider disallowing qualified operators in @transpose

Issue Description:

I propose to borrow Haskell's syntax for operator disambiguation when the same operator is declared in two different modules and the compiler cannot figure out which one to use contextually. Given the made-up operator %! occurring in modules Foo and Bar, we could say

import Foo
import Bar

let x = 3 (Foo.%!) 4
let y = 17 (Bar.%!) 99

Perhaps in Swift the parentheses are not necessary.

The general workaround for this is that there should be an "ordinary" function declared for every operator, so that it can be used in places where the compiler gets confused. This is the practice I follow, but being able to disambiguate operators in this way would be very useful.

[belkadan]

Definitely a worthwhile issue. Would need to go through the Swift Evolution Process.