Re: Proposal: lua_pushfoo() should return 1

[Dirk Zoller <duz@...>]

On 09/02/2014 01:58 AM, Rena wrote:
> More accurately, it should return the number of values it pushed,
> which for most push functions will always be 1.
>
> That would simplify returning a value slightly:
>
> return lua_pushinteger(L, 42);
>
> instead of:
> lua_pushinteger(L, 42);
> return 1;


Besides the small simplification for the writer of the code,
this would allow the C-compiler to do tail call optimization.

   lua_pushx (L, xxx);
   return 1;

compiles to

   call lua_pushx
   mov 1, register
   return

where if lua_pushx would return 1, the then possible source code

   return lua_pushx (L, xxx)

often times would be compiled to just:

   jump lua_pushx


So there would actually be a small technical benefit.