RE: Shorthand for appending to a table (was Re: 5.2 feature list?)

["Kucera, Rich" <Kucerar@...>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: lua-bounces@bazar2.conectiva.com.br [mailto:lua-
> bounces@bazar2.conectiva.com.br] On Behalf Of David Given
> Eric Scouten wrote:
> [...]
> >   tableWithMeaningfulName[] = value
> 
> I have to say that I don't like this, simply because the syntax doesn't
> convey
> any information about what it does --- if anything, it looks like it
> should
> assign to *all* members of the table. I'd rather have the language
> consistent
> and verbose rather than concise and full of special exceptions. That way
> lies
> madness, e.g. Perl.

I think the search is for a meaningful syntax that does something,  does some
work,  and the madness to be avoided is a syntax that does nothing,  for
example:

   void convertToDisplayValues( HashMap recordForView ) {
        Iterator iter = recordForView.keySet().iterator();
        while ( iter.hasNext() ) {
            String fieldName = (String)iter.next();
            if ( ((String)recordForView.get(fieldName)).equals("on") ) {
                recordForView.put(fieldName, "*** ADD ***");
            }
...

The same thing in PHP actually starts to reveal some meaning,  do some work:

function convertToDisplayValues( $recordForView ) {
          foreach ( $recordForView as $fieldName => $fieldVal ) {
                    if ( $fieldVal == "on" ) {
                            $recordForView[$fieldName] = "*** ADD ***";
                    }
...

Probably the same thing in Python would be even more concise.  I don't know
what this blurb would look like in Lua because I haven't written any Lua yet
:-) ...Can someone please?

Best Regards,
-R