Hi, I'm trying to add a new operator to the kotlin...

# compiler

[Abel]

Hi,
I'm trying to add a new operator to the kotlin compiler source code for academic purposes, a '**' that should be translated to '.pow' (so "2.0 ** 5.0" should be the same as "2.0.pow(5.0)").
By replicating the '*' (times) operator I'm able to add it to the lexer, and it is correctly identified and replaced, even in the kotlin bytecode viewer.
Unfortunately when compiling it says "Error:(9, 17) Kotlin: 'operator' modifier is required on 'pow' in 'kotlin.math'".
The issue is: the pow operation doesn't have the keyword operator, but I can't add it because otherwise I'm not able to compile it. The same also happens if I try to add a new function (let's say "public operator fun powOper(other: Int): Int" because there is no powOper in the Kotlin version I'm using to compile the source code, so I can't add the operator keyword there.
What can I do?

[Youssef Shoaib [MOD]]

You can try having some form of "prelude" library that just has public operator fun Double.powOper(other: Int): Int = pow(other), or you can even define it yourself in the source code that you're compiling.

[Abel]

I can't define it in the source code itself because otherwise I can't compile it (because I need kotlin to compile kotlin...). I guess using a separated library is the way to go, but I'm not sure yet how to.

[Youssef Shoaib [MOD]]

I'm not talking about defining it in the modified kotlin compiler's source code, but instead define it in the code that is meant to be compiled by the modified kotlin compiler

[Youssef Shoaib [MOD]]

as in let's say you have a main.kt that uses this new pow operator:

fun main(){
    println(5.0 ** 2) // should print 25
}
// Add the powOper definition here then to make it work
operator fun Double.powOper(other: Int): Double = this.pow(other)

[shikasd]

I think this mismatch can be solved if you create the compiler artifact which allows this new function and then use it to compile stdlib with your new changes

[shikasd]

I think you can publish it to maven local and then override it to use local version somewhere in gradle properties (I think by version)

[Abel]

@Youssef Shoaib [MOD] your suggestion works! Thank you very much, I didn't though of that.
@shikasd Now that I'm able to test with Youssef's trick I'll try your suggestion too.

[Youssef Shoaib [MOD]]

@Abel happens to the best of us lol! It's probably because like when you go deep into a specific complex topic like compilers you stop considering simple solutions because they're too simple!