Re: Feature proposal: \x## notation in strings

[Nick Gammon <nick@...>]

I know it is almost 2 weeks later, but I would also like to support  
the \x## notation.

It is worth noting that there would be backwards incompatibilities  
with any code that currently has stuff like "\x22" in it (which  
current renders as "x22").

At present, it is tedious if you read (for example) somewhere about a  
telnet IAC sequence (like ff f0 ff fb 56 ff), and want to incorporate  
it into your Lua code. If Lua supported the \xHH sequence, a simple  
find-and-replace of the spaces would fix them up into a usable string.  
However now you need to translate each one into decimal.

Unlike some other suggestions for changes, this suggestion does not  
cause run-time code bloat, or extra execution time. Compile time  
increase would be marginal at best. And the extra code in Lua would be  
minimal.

By the way, with reference to the Principle Of Least Surprise, the  
sequence \012 in C is the number 0x0A whereas in Lua is is 0x0C.  
Considering how closely the string escape sequences mimic C's (and the  
reference in the manual to C-like escape sequences), that is a bit of  
a surprise. :)

- Nick