Re: string.gsub and its need for variables..

[David Given <dg@...>]

The Doctor wrote:
> Thankyou :) I like the brackets, that's a neat answer and the one
> I'll use. The function is ok too, though I'd only do that if I wanted
> further modification, probably. That said, isn't it strange that
> there should be special requests for a minimum default? In most
> things in life we might only want extra information if we ask for it,
> and Lua, by doing the reverse of this, seems to risk losing the easy
> and clarity it is so good at.

It's not a special request; gsub *always* returns multiple values. It's
just that if you just say x = string.gsub(...) then all except the first
one are discarded.

It just so happens that if a function that returns multiple values is
the last item in an argument list or a table definition, then all the
values are appended. If you'd done:

	io.write(string.gsub(...), 4)

...then you would have seen the expected result (one string followed by
a 4).

So Lua is behaving completely consistently, if a little unintuitively.

--
[insert interesting .sig here]