Re: io:lines() and \0

[Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@...>]

2014-02-21 18:41 GMT+02:00 Andrew Starks <andrew.starks@trms.com>:

> What we all think it should do is a factor. What your sub-30 year old trying
> to script a Lua-extended application by reading in a machine-generated
> "text" file is another importantant factor.

Sub-30 year olds, especially sub-20 year olds, need the experience of
debugging programs with subtle bugs. (I was a professor, nicknamed
"The KGB", in my previous life.)

> This isn't a vote. If it were a vote, mine would be for raising an error.

That is an idea, but what will you be checking for? \0 only? Other control
characters? Full UTF-8 compliance?

> Especially given that you could also read chunks ("*n") at a time and parse
> the stream in anyway you please, 0's and all.

Exactly.

> Lua's library functions are lightweight bindings around C, for the most
> part. Radically different behavior than C would bring too much complexity.

Exactly.

> The update to the manual is also an improvement and perhaps it is enough?

It's obviously all we are going to get.

Laurie's Law: The most heated debates on Lua-L are on topics that the
developers will not implement.