Re: Let's talk about order of assignment

[Sean Conner <sean@...>]

It was thus said that the Great Tom N Harris once stated:
> On Sunday, September 14, 2014 05:18:50 PM Coda Highland wrote:
> > I can't imagine any way it wouldn't be a bug if you did do it, but a
> > realistic way I could see such a thing arising unintentionally is
> > like:
> > 
> > tbl[a], tbl[b], tbl[c] = k1, k2, k3
> > 
> > where a, b, and c are determined by some logic external to the
> > function. If any of a, b, or c are the same value, you trigger this
> > behavior.
> 
> Also relevant when __newindex is defined on the metatable and has side-
> effects.
> 
> But I think you'd have to be some kind of sadist to put side-effects in a 
> metatable function. Nothing obfuscates a program more than when what looks 
> like a simple `=' sign means more than just assign a value to the lvalue.

  I'm guilty of that.  My POSIX process libary [1] allows:

	process.limits.hard.core = "20m"

but behind the scenes it turns that into a call to setrlimit().  I find
"assigning" the values more intuitive than knowing how to call the
setrlimit() function.  Conversely, reading process.limits.hard.core in turn
calls getrlimit().

  -spc

[1]	https://github.com/spc476/lua-conmanorg/blob/master/src/process.c
	starting around line 637