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

[Jorge <xxopxe@...>]

On 14/01/15 16:28, Roberto Ierusalimschy wrote:
> > So, if the first return is nil, you should be able to safely assume
> > that there won't be anything of interest after that. Except an
> > explanation.
> You got my point, except about your "except" :-) If the first return is
> nil, you should be able to safely assume that there won't be anything of
> interest after that. Period.
>
> -- Roberto

Now, how do you imagine these functions:

1. a consumer that is not guaranteed to have data available, like a 
nonblocking socket. Today it is
    data, err = read()
If data is nil that means that read() could not actually read anything, 
so can not provide a value. Depending on how read() works, an error 
message could be useful or not. In the simplest case no error message is 
needed: no data means no data, do whatever you can.

2. A function that returns a boolean:
    __eq = function (a, b) return a == b  end
There is nothing special in returning a false.

Jorge


[It is weird to be defending an idea in front of it's author.]