---

4.4 Of Functions And Operators

Functions and operators perform similar actions. For such reason, their definitions are nearly identical. There is nonetheless a significant difference in their intended use, one that goes beyond such minor difference as number of parameters and the character set allowed for names.

Operators are envisaged as lighter versions of functions. They trade flexibility and expressiveness for faster evaluation.

See Functions.

See Prefix Unary Operators.

See Infix Binary Operators.

Over operators, functions have a large set of features, greatly extending their usefulness. Such features include:

• implicit conversion for arguments

  See Implicit Conversions.

• associated data

  See Per Function Execution Context.

• eligibility for function (and operator) arguments

  See Function Pointers.

The lackings in the expressiveness of operators may be covered to some extend by the operator to function replacement feature of the expression evaluator.

See Expressive Operators.