Re: Patch to remove auto-casting between numbers and strings

[Asko Kauppi <askok@...>]

Perhaps having to do with this:

> _,_,a= string.find( "100", "(%d+)" )
> print(type(a))
string

I've always wanted a "(%d+)" caption to give me a number, not a string.

-asko


John Belmonte kirjoitti 9.9.2006 kello 4.01:

> Reuben Thomas wrote:
> > Motivation for the patch: I don't like automatic casting; it hides  
> > bugs.
> > I also think it rarely[1] helps users, and if it does (e.g. in a  
> > config
> > file), then you can do the auto-casting yourself (e.g. read a config
> > file, and call "to<type>(v)" on each value you read).
> >
> > [1]For example, print is one function I've left alone. This is an
> > example of the fine line in Lua between auto-casting and  
> > intentionally
> > calling a tostring method.
>
> Nice to know that I'm not the only one who dislikes the implicit
> coercion-- however I don't think the line you mention is that  
> fine.  The
> print function is intended for debugging (e.g. dumping a given  
> object),
> and it makes sense to call tostring() on its arguments.  That's a
> documented behavior performed explicitly by the function, and very
> different from the implicit coercion taking place in an expression  
> like
> (5 + "5").
>
> To resolve Mark's issue with string.format in another post, I think  
> the
> existing %s should run tostring() on its argument.  There's no want or
> need for a strict string format type.
>
>
> Regards,
> --John