Re: First impressions and errata

[Andrew Starks <andrew.starks@...>]

On Sunday, February 23, 2014, Enrico Colombini <erix@erix.it> wrote:
> On 23/02/2014 13.37, steve donovan wrote:
> > That's nice to know! In the meantime, have a look at ilua
> >
> > https://github.com/ilua/ilua
> >
> > which uses an exploratory compile trick to remove the restriction. It
> > also has a default pretty-printer which is good enough for most
> > purposes.
>
> A basic table printer that could perhaps be useful in the standalone interpreter could be:
>
> - first print all the entries from 1 to #t using ipairs()
> - mark the last one with '#'
> - then print all entries with pairs() except those printed before
>
> For example, this table:
>
> { 'monday', 'tuesday', 'wednesday', 'thursday', 'friday';
>   [27] = 'payday', [100] = { 1, 2, 3 },
>   monday = 1, tuesday = 2, wednesday = 3, thursday = 4, friday = 5 }
>
> could print like this:
>
> 1 = 'monday'
> 2 = 'tuesday'
> 3 = 'wednesday'
> 4 = 'thursday'
> 5 = 'friday'
> #
> 'wednesday' = 3
> 'monday' = 1
> 100 = table: 00468538
> 'friday' = 5
> 'thursday' = 4
> 27 = 'payday'
> 'tuesday' = 2
>
> If declared as a function (e.g. __table_printer()) the table printer would be replaceable with the usual command line options, or possibly disabled with a new option.
>
> As an alternative, a sign different from '=' could be used to invoke the table printer, or generally speaking a more informative printer.
> (I don't dare venturing into table recursion territory)
>
> P.S. I'm still trying to decide if I like this. Probably not much: it just saves a few keys from calling a table printer loaded via LUA_INIT.
>
> -- 
>   Enrico

A small suggestion:

Make the output legal lua code. 

Example: "--#"

Not quite as pretty, but not only do I sometimes munch pretty output, it might even be clearer for new programmers? It is not as aesthetically pleasing, however.