Assuming optionality

PWC 180 Task 1 asks us to find the first unique character in a string. I wanted to have a nice interface where I would write:

say $str.comb.first: &unique-char;

The idea was to curry postcircumfix:<{ }> so it will be bound to a BagHash and always ask for :!exists. Alas, .assuming doesn’t do the right thing if the proto contains optional positions. I found a workaround utilising once.

for ‘Perl Weekly Challenge’, ‘Long Live Perl’ -> $str {
    my &unique-char = { (once $str.comb.BagHash»--){$_}:!exists }
    say $str.comb.first: &unique-char;
}

I don’t want to build the BagHash and remove single elements every time unique-char is called. There is a slight overhead when using once but that beats .assuming by a mile.

Given all the special cases Signatures provide, we may want to consider turning .assuming into a RakuAST-macro.