Re: tostring(e,[base])

[Duncan Cross <duncan.cross@...>]

On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 12:05 PM, Dirk Laurie <dpl@sun.ac.za> wrote:
> At present Lua has `tonumber (e [, base])` but only `tostring (e)`.
> For symmetry, `tostring (e [, base])` would be nice to have:
>
>    F5 = 2^32+1
>    p = 641
>    q = F5/p
>    print (tostring(q,2)).."₂" --> 11001100011101110000001₂
>
> Dirk
>
>
>
>

I disagree. It would feel odd to parameterize tostring() just for
adding a base, and not in arbitrary other extensible ways too, which I
feel would overcomplicate the function.

If anything, it shows that tonumber(e, base) should strictly be
separated out from tonumber(e) to a different function. But my
preference would be to just keep it as it is, the "asymmetry" really
doesn't seem like a problem.

-Duncan