Re: about table.insert return value (==nil)

[Daniel Stephens <daniel@...>]

I really dont want to be suggesting a 3rd option, but how about 
returning the only thing that the caller doesn't explicitly provide, 
namely the index assigned to the thing being inserted.

(The thing-ists out there could be satisfied by having it return index, 
thing, but maybe that's getting far too crazy)

Daniel.


On 12/20/09 7:36 AM, frank wrote:
> Ico wrote:
> > * On 2009-12-20 frank <frank@frankhirsch.net> wrote  :
> > > [...]
> > > Giving back the table as return value from table.insert would:
> > >  - enable "sometable=table.insert(sometable or {},newelement)"
> > >  - not break existing code
> > >  - probably not significantly impact performance
> > >
> > > So, why not?
> >
> > I guess the other 'logical' behaviour would be to return the newly
> > inserted element instead of the table:
> >
> >   thing = table.insert(sometable, new_thing())
> >
> > Maybe neither is implemented because they're both equaly logical ?
>
> Even without arguing which possibility feels more natural, if the
> performance impact is as low as I imagine (very nearly none) then
> it would make sense to return whichever instead of neither.
>
> So I submit to establish the feasibility to return a value first,
> and commence the argument over what should be returned second... =)
>
> Regards, Frank