Following the replies on the Google mailing list I was wondering about this: The tilde operator may conceptually be allocated to ANY but there is no code that explains it as the_better_is_equal alias "~" Thinking of it, the equal operator "=" is neither. But within computer languages the equal sign seems to be self evident, while its sibling the tilde is a newcomer. In ANY is_equal is defines as an external "built_in". Please consider: Make a formal definition of the implementation in Eiffel syntax for equal operators "=" and "~" in class ANY. It seems obvious that they will also have a body of external "built_in". I understand that the class code for ANY will be considered frozen until a future major release happens. But it would be nice to at least see some comment lines that would show up in a text search for this pair of equal operators. _______________ R.