2010/8/19 Göran Krampe <goran@krampe.se>
On 08/19/2010 09:53 PM, Stéphane Ducasse wrote:
What would you say the right thing is?
Well, intuitively I would say that converting an Array of Character instances (say 5 instances) using "asString" would give me a String of size 5. Also, "Character space asString" does NOT give me 'Character space' but actually ' '.
Maybe its just me, but I'd rather not have SequenceableCollection>> asString mean "If I contain only elements which may represent characters, return a string containing those, if not, return my printString"
yes you are not the only one. Thanks I was thinking about that after my post :)
Having a fallback on printString is of course fine, in Object. But...
well, I haven't thought *deeply* on this, but a sequencable collection of Characters should IMHO be able to produce a String regards, Göran
And it is, using either collection as: String, or String withAll: collection In both cases you then explicitly specify that this collection will contain only elements which can be converted to a string, rather than have a later reader of the code have to question "hmmm, does the use of asString here mean he'll be using the collections printString, or the string with its elements?"
I'm curious about the senders of asString, especially to collection.
Stef
I am all in agreement I think, my gut reaction was that, darn, something is broken. But perhaps sending asString to a Collection of objects should... well, what *should* it return?
I think possibly one of the problems in all this is the fallback on printString - that has clearly muddled the waters IMHO. #printString is for the tools, it should give a "readable representation". But #asString is a conversion method - it should give me IMHO the most reasonable conversion for further "use".
I agree that #as: etc might be a "better" protocol, but let's say we still want #asString to work for Collections and NOT fall back on #printString - then what should it do?
If aCollection asArray = (aCollection as: Array) then surely aCollection asString = (aCollection as: String) If ([aCollection as: String. nil] on: Error do: [:ex| ex]) notNil then surely ([aCollection as: String. nil] on: Error do: [:ex| ex messageText]) = ([aCollection asString. nil] on: Error do: [:ex| ex messageText]) i.e. if aCollection doesn't include characters both forms should return errors. I find the Object implementation of asString distasteful, but that's juts my taste. However, I find Collection's inheriting of that definition badly broken. my 2¢ best Eliot
regards, Göran
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