distfix

distfix

(programming)("distributed fixity"?) A description of anoperator represented by multiple symbols before, between,and/or after the arguments.

The classical example is the C conditional operator, "?:"which is written

E1 ? E2 : E3

If E1 is true it returns E2 otherwise it returns E3. Severalfunctional programming languages, e.g. Hope, Haskell,have similar operators ("if E1 then E2 else E3").

Objective C messages are effectively distfix operatorapplications:

getRow:row andColumn:col ofCell:cell

is a message with three arguments, row, col, and cell.