I am in a C++ class right now so this question will concern itself primarily with that language, though I haven't been able to find any information for any other language either and I have a feeling whatever the answer is it's probably largely cross language.
In C++ unmarked numbers are assumed to be of integral type ('4', for example, is an integer) various bounding marks allow for the number to be interpreted differently (''4'', for example, is a character, '"4"' a string).
As far as I know, there is only one kind of unary mark: the decimal point. ('4.' is a double).
I would like to create a new unary mark that designates a constant number in the code to be interpreted as a member of a created datatype. More fundamentally, I would like to know what the '.' and ',' and '"', and ''' are (they aren't operators, keywords, or statements, so what are they?) and how the compiler deals with/interprets them.
More information, if you feel it is necessary:
I am trying to make a complex number header that I can include in any project to do complex math. I am aware of the library but it is, IMHO, ugly and if used extensively slows down coding time. Also I'm mostly trying to code this to improve my programming skills. My goal is to be able to declare a complex variable by doing something of the form cmplx num1= 3 + 4i; where '3' and '4' are arbitrary and 'i' is a mark similar to the decimal point which indicates '4' as imaginary.
I would like to create a new unary mark that designates a constant number in the code to be interpreted as a member of a created datatype.
You can use user defined literals that were introduced in C++11. As an example, assuming you have a class type Type and you want to use the num_y syntax, where num is a NumericType, you can do:
Type operator"" _y(NumericType i) {
return Type(i);
}