Re: [ANN] Lua 5.3.0 (alpha) now available

[Patrick Donnelly <batrick@...>]

On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 11:34 AM, Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2014-08-01 17:15 GMT+02:00 Daurnimator <quae@daurnimator.com>:
>> On 1 August 2014 10:48, Roberto Ierusalimschy <roberto@inf.puc-rio.br>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> >  [...] However, I am not delighted
>>> > by an optional argument preceding a non-optional one. [...]
>>>
>>> We do not like it either. Do you suggest any alternative?
>>>
>>> -- Roberto
>>>
>>
>> I see no problem saying making the function signature
>>
>>     table.icopy(from_tbl, from_idx, num_elements, [to_tbl, to_idx])
>>
>> If to_tbl and to_idx ar not given, they default to the empty table and 1.
>> The function always returns to_tbl.
>
> I like this, but why not
>
> table.icopy(from_tbl[, from_idx, num_elements[, to_tbl, to_idx]])
>
> with from_idx, num_elements defaulting to 1,#from_tbl? Then
> sequence cloning is simply
>
> to_tbl = table.icopy(from_tbl)

How about:

table.icopy(from_tbl [, from_idx [, num_elements [, to_tbl [, to_idx ]]]])

Defaults:

from_idx = 1
num_elements = #from_tbl
to_tbl = {}
to_idx = #to_tbl

Can we go deeper? :)

-- 
Patrick Donnelly