Re: Problem with os.date?

[Nick Gammon <nick@...>]

On 16/09/2006, at 12:34 AM, Roberto Ierusalimschy wrote:

> We will fix that, but it seems that the behavior of os.date("!")  
> should
> be coherent with that of os.date(""): that is, it should return the
> empty string.

Actually it doesn't, and is just as confusing:

> print (os.date (""))
stdin:1: 'date' format too long
stack traceback:
        [C]: in function 'date'
        stdin:1: in main chunk
        [C]: ?


The behaviour for a nil argument is the default format of %c.

> print (os.date ())
Sat Sep 16 10:29:49 2006
>

You could argue that an empty string should return an empty string,  
including the case of the string "!".

Alternatively, you could argue that the string "!" is intended to  
mean "!%c", although I suppose if you really mean that you may as  
well put it there. :)

- Nick