Re: get_local() and "(for index/limit/stop)"

[Rici Lake <lua@...>]

On 18-Sep-04, at 10:27 AM, David Given wrote:

> The _ idiom does *part* of this, but it can occasionally trip you up 
> because it doesn't do what you expect it to do.

I guess that depends what you expect it to do :) My point was that you 
can use any arbitrary local name at (almost) no cost:

  local unused, unused, capture = string.find(str, pat)

  local _, _, capture = string.find(str, pat)

No magic required.

I wasn't proposing making life easier for the compiler; rather the 
contrary. I was suggesting that it would be reasonably easy for the 
compiler to optimise away unused variables if someone wanted to do 
that; I doubt that it would make an observable difference in execution 
time, though.

I personally like the _ convention, but I don't think the language 
should insist on it.

R.