Re: Lua library API design

[Asko Kauppi <askok@...>]

Definately so.

Then again, in many cases s.a. SDL this inevidently leads to problems  
turning sample C application code to work with Lua.  If the C code  
has (value != 0) checks or similar, they simply won't work.

It is nevertheless always better to adjust to the "native" look and  
feel of a given language, if someone has a silver-bullet solution to  
this, I'd like to hear. But I think there isn't.

-asko


Rici Lake kirjoitti 8.1.2006 kello 21.09:

> I forgot to mention my favorite bugbear in API bindings.
>
> C does not have a true boolean type, so it typically uses 0 and non- 
> zero integers. Given APIs typically either return 0/failure 1/ 
> success or 0/success non-zero/error or 0/success -1/look in 'error'  
> for the error or...
>
> That's a pain, and it should not be translated to Lua APIs. Lua  
> provides a clear mechanism for error returns (well, two of them if  
> you include the pcall convention). OS interfaces which simply  
> return the integer result are, in my opinion, un-Lua-like and  
> unnecessarily thin. (And as awkward as the original C interface.)