class operator + named operators (Initialize/Finalize/Explicit/...)

• Type: feature (Pascal frontend, operator overloading)
• Track: P (shared parser.inc — A-gated)
• Status: backlog ([[feature-pascal-corpus-fpc-testsuite]]).
• Owner: — (header de-staled 2026-07-19 sweep: was left "working/opus-p"; named operators + enumerator dispatch landed (395aa20a + slice 2), management ops still parse-only — not dispatched, tmoperator1-11 skip-listed)

Symptom

error: expected operator symbol after operator keyword — pxx parses only symbol operators (operator + etc.). Missing:

• management operators in advanced records: class operator Initialize/Finalize/AddRef/Copy(var a: TFoo) (tmoperator*) — these have semantics (compiler-invoked at var lifetime events), not just parse;
• named conversion/logic operators FPC accepts (Explicit, := assignment-operator spelling, in, inc, dec).

Impact

8 curated failures (tmoperator*, tassignmentoperator1, some toperator*). Skip-list reason: parser: named/class operator.

Note

Parse-side is P; the lifetime-event invocation (Initialize on entry, Finalize on scope exit) likely needs IR/lowering support → that part is a Track A ticket when reached.

Gate

make test + self-host byte-identical; burn the skip-list entries.

Slice 1 landed (2026-07-12, opus-p)

Named operators on RECORD/CLASS operands parse + dispatch:

• operator := / Implicit — implicit conversion at assignment (ir.inc AN_ASSIGN rewrites the RHS to the conversion call when types differ and the overload's result type matches the LHS).
• operator Explicit — fires at value casts (both the ident castTk branch and the tkInteger_T branch in ParseFactor).
• operator Inc/Dec — the Inc(x)/Dec(x) statements desugar to x := Op(x) (single-operand form only, like FPC).
• Enumerator + management ops parse+register but are NOT dispatched yet. Conformance: toperator11 burns. Test: test/test_named_operators.pas.

Slice 2 landed (2026-07-12, opus-p)

operator Enumerator DISPATCHES in for-in: a class/record (or string-typed) container with a registered enumerator overload builds the same duck-typed MoveNext/Current[/Free] loop as GetEnumerator, over the operator call. Scalar operand types also register now (LongInt/String/...; String under both managed+frozen kinds), and conversion/unary operators enforce 1-param arity (binary = 2). Conformance: tforin5 + tassignmentoperator1 burn (3 total with toperator11). Tests: test_named_operators, test_operator_enumerator.

Remaining:

• operators on NON-record operand types (String/LongInt operands — tforin2, tgenfunc8/10, tassignmentoperator1): needs the OvrlType table + dispatch to accept scalar tks (recId REC_NONE), and the scalar binop hot path to consult it.
• operator Enumerator dispatch in for-in (tforin2/5/24).
• class operator INSIDE advanced records (tmoperator*) — member-decl parse plus the Initialize/Finalize lifetime EVENTS, which are IR work → file the Track A ticket when picked up.