Repetitions in method calls

[usaoc]

Consider something like

#lang rhombus/static
def [n, ...]:
  for List (i: 0..3):
    i

def [lst :: List, ...]:
  for List (i: 0..3):
    [i]

[lst.remove(n), ...]

or

#lang rhombus/static
def [n, ...]:
  for List (i: 0..3):
    i

class Foo(x):
  method add(y):
    Foo(x + y)

def [foo :: Foo, ...]:
  for List (i: 0..3):
    Foo(i)

[foo.add(n), ...]

these programs error with “cannot use repetition binding as an expression.” On the other hand, simply switching to dynamic dispatch makes them work.

[usaoc]

A bigger problem, I think, is that dot providers are currently invoked with a parsed expression as the left-hand side. This means that the dot provider for methods cannot have a chance to compose the compound repetition before the left-hand side has already been processed. A possible solution is to allow dot providers to be aware of repetitions (and be invoked with a parsed repetition as the left-hand side), but there are likely other drawbacks.