I do not say that it is a problem of playground. I'm saying that our tools are breaking an important invariant.

Printit should not produce "strings" that are not objects.

What I'm saying it that

- axiom one printString returns a string.

- printIt send printString to the object and why does it no display a string

except for objects whose representation is themselves.

The problem not to put '' around string is that we get a broken things.

In Pharo we have tools that when they should display a string return a "we do not know what"

because it is not a literal!

'comics' Printit does not produce comics but 'comics'

(#AAA asClass new name: 'comics') printit

because this is insane. It breaks everyrhing

Hmm, I think I do not see it :).

Let��s take it slowly. From what I see, the behavior is the same since at least Pharo 3.

Here is a script that seems to reproduce your situation:

Object subclass: #AAA
instanceVariableNames: 'name'
classVariableNames: ''
package: 'AAA'.
#AAA asClass compile: 'printOn: aStream
aStream << name'.
#AAA asClass compile: 'name: aString
name := aString'.
#AAA asClass new name: 'comics'

In Pharo 6, we have in a Playground:

In Pharo 3, we have this in a Workspace:

Calling Print It on an object produces a string out of the contents of the stream, and displaying it shows the contents of the stream (so, no quotes). Calling Print It on a string produces a string of the string, and displaying it shows the quotes of the first string.

You can see this in the String tab of the inspector:

Does this make sense?

I think this is not inconsistent, but maybe there is a better way. In any case, the behavior seems to exist since a long time.

On Feb 19, 2017, at 9:06 AM, stepharong <stepharong@free.fr> wrote:

Hi doru

may be I do not see the obvious.
I defined a class

Object subclass: #MFElement
instanceVariableNames: 'name parent'
classVariableNames: ''
package: 'MyFS2'

printOn: aStream
parent isNil ifFalse: [ parent printOn: aStream ].
aStream << name

name: aString
name := aString

MFDirectory new name: 'comics'.

And when I do

(MFDirectory new name: 'comics')
comics/

(MFDirectory new name: 'comics') printString
'comics/'

Hi Stef,

I think I do not understand the issue.

Here is the screenshot of a Playground.

��comics�� -> print-it -> ��comics'

<Mail Attachment.png>

What am I missing?

Cheers,
Doru

On Feb 18, 2017, at 6:26 PM, stepharong <stepharong@free.fr> wrote:

Hi guys

I'm working on an introduction chapter for my future book and I do not like the behavior I see in latest pharo 60.

And I do not understand the behavior of print-it

(MFDirectory new name: 'comics')
comics/

(MFDirectory new name: 'comics') printString
'comics/'

Why print it does not produce ''?

Stef

printIt
"Treat the current text selection as an expression; evaluate it. Insert the
description of the result of evaluation after the selection and then make
this description the new text selection."

| printString |
self
evaluateSelectionAndDo: [ :result |
printString := [ result printString ]
on: Error
do: [ '<error in printString: try ''Inspect it'' to debug>' ].
self afterSelectionInsertAndSelect: printString ]

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