Re: Questions about string.pack() and string.unpack()

[Oliver Kroth <oliver.kroth@...>]

Hi,

I tested the string.pack() and string.unpack in Lua 5.2.3 (copied them 
to lstrlib.c), which works fine.

And of course :-) some questions came up:

1) why is in string.pack the default length for c (simple string) 1, and 
not the string's length?
pack() throws an error if the string's length does not match the coded 
length, but there is no method to encode the length as a variable

2) why is there no way to put literal characters into the pack()ed string?

3) the description for the 'X' specifier
"an empty item that aligns according to option op (which is otherwise 
ignored)"
was not clear to me at first. Possibly
"align like but ignore the format option op"
would be faster to grab

--
Oliver