XOR operator '^' for bools

[DavidSichma]

closes #18816

The bitwise xor operator (^) has been extended to also work as an logical operation.

[aaronfranke]

How is this different from !=?

[akien-mga]

The code could be simplified with p_a._data._bool != p_b._data._bool since that's the same as XOR for booleans.

I don't mind adding this, but I also don't see much use case since != is the same. Opinions welcome.

[bojidar-bg]

Given that the other bitwise operators don't work on booleans, I would prefer to have a special boolean-xor operator than that (e.g. x ^^ y?).

[akien-mga]

Given that the other bitwise operators don't work on booleans, I would prefer to have a special boolean-xor operator than that (e.g. x ^^ y?).

Well then I'd prefer none at all if it's the same as !=... We don't need to create another operator/another token for a feature that is not needed.

[DavidSichma]

I made this PR merely for training c++. The addition of this little feature seemed like a good task to me.

I know that this is not a necessary feature. != is pretty much the same, not many folks use xor and with optional typing this won't even add type safety. The only people profiting would be those expecting ^ to work out of the box.

If you don't want to add ^ then don't. I got my bit of training so I am happy either way.

[ghost]

Even though logically it is the same as !=, at least in my case sometimes conceptually they seem different or are recognized more immediately in certain context. Not equal and one or the other.

Check if these are not equal. A != B
Allow only one of the options. option_1 xor option_2

Though redundant I wouldn't mind xor and ^^ for the sake of readability and preferences. There were one or two occasions in months past where I would've reached for it, because in the context it would've been easier for me when reading it later down the road.

Something like: (A and B) xor not C against (A and B) != not C

[vnen]

If this is really needed we could add ^^ and xor operators for booleans. But I'm against using ^ for booleans, to be consistent with & and | being bitwise operators that only works with integers.

[DavidSichma]

Most languages don't have an logical xor operation and just use the bitwise xor. The ones that actually have an logical xor usually just overload ^. Java and C# do it this way. I don't think adding a new ^^ operator just for GDScript would be a good idea.

And I wouldn't go through the hassle of adding a new 'xor' operator, token and all unless there were a decent amount of people requesting the feature.
I think I will just close this PR if it does not pick up some interest in the next days.

[akien-mga]

As per the above discussion, I don't think this is a useful addition for now, since it doesn't have any practical use case nor strong community involvement to get it nevertheless.

I'll also close the original feature request as such. Thanks for working on it and pushing the discussion forward though!