Re: Lua interface standards

[Sean Conner <sean@...>]

It was thus said that the Great Martin once stated:
> 
> Also there will be need to standartize behavior for bad data both
> when decoding and coding. For example you can't serialize table
> with table-type keys to JSON. Or table with cycles. Should error()
> be raised or just (nil, err_msg) returned?

  I actually prefer (nil, err_value).  First, the caller might be able to
deal with the error (don't force me to pcall() just to capture an error I
can handle), and an error value is easier to check than a string (especially
given locales).  It's not uncommon for my code to do:

	local remote,data,err = socket:recv()
	if not remote then
	  if err == errno.ETIMEDOUT then
	    -- timed out, probably return or something
	  end

	  if err ~= errno.EINTR then
	    syslog('error',"socket:recv() = %s",errno[err])
	  end

	else
	  -- happy path
	end

> Should standard provide .verify(t) function?

  What should this do?

> What if I want to serialize parts that can be serialized and omit
> others? Should standard provide .align(t) function?

  Least-common-demoninitor behavior is to assume error() and if it can't
serialize what you give it, then error().

  -spc