assert()

["Peter Hill" <corwin@...>]

I've been reading through the "How to Program in Lua Draft" (mentioned on
the list a few days ago) and I noticed the suggested use of "assert()" as a
guard against unexpected errors in functions that return 'nil' to signal an
error has occured. So:
  assert(readline("test"))

Or even:
  x = assert( f() )

But what if the function normally returns multiple values? According to the
Lua5(beta) manual "assert" is equivalent to:
  function assert (v, m)
    if not v then
      error(m or "assertion failed!")
    end
    return v
  end

so:
  a,b,c = assert( f() )

would be doomed to failure (as 'b' and 'c' would never be assigned) :-(.


Would it not make more sense to define "assert()" as:

  function assert(v, ...)
    if not v then
      error(arg[1] or "assertion failed!")
    end
    return v, unpack(arg)
  end

*cheers*
Peter Hill.