Re: confused by the wierd "q" option of "string.format".

[Dirk Laurie <dpl@...>]

On Fri, Jul 08, 2011 at 06:15:27AM +0200, Dirk Laurie wrote:
> The manual says:
> 
> > The q option formats a string in a form suitable to be safely read 
> > back by the Lua interpreter
> 

This sentence has been changed in 5.2.0-beta-rc6 to:

> The q option formats a string between double quotes, using escape sequences
> when necessary to ensure that it can safely be read back by the Lua
> interpreter.

Some points made in the thread so far: 
    1. Suitability of the q option for any other use than as input to 
        the Lua interpreter is not a design objective.
    2. Nevertheless, other purposes could be served without harm to the 
        intended purpose if instead of escaped non-printing characters,
        the equivalent representation as printing ones is given, such as 
        `\n` and `\b` rather than escaped newline and escaped backspace.

Dirk