File-names vs file-descriptors and question on io library way of reporting errors.

[KR <krunal.rao78@...>]

Hi, 

Mostly for data containers (vectors, matrices of numbers) the typical code for 
writing data to files is:

local f = assert(io.open("somefile.txt", "w"))
-- follows asserted code where I write the elements of the container to f
f:close()

This is all quite repetitive so I ended up with something like (I really have 
this  as a "memeber function"):

local function write(array, filename, mode)
  mode = mode or "w"
  local f = assert(io.open(filename, mode))
  -- follows asserted code where I write the elements of the container to f
  f:close()
end

What I am wondering about is mainly whether it's a good practice to pass around 
filenames instead of filedescriptors (handles).

I was also interested in the motivations that led to prefer for the io library 
the approach of "non-signalling errors" (i.e. nil + error message on error) 
instead of the "signalling" one (error(errormessage) on error). 
I am finding myself surrounding (almost) all the io operations with asserts, 
while with the signalling approach this would not be necessary and if action can 
be taken to recover from the error this action can be implemented via pcall.
It's not a critique, I am just curious =)

Thanks for any reply (on these not-so-interesting) questions.