Re: Make type respect __name and add rawtype

[Spar <developspartv@...>]

Having a type metamethod is great, especially if LuaJIT implements it.
As example a game Garry's Mod had to make their own type function to respect __MetaName field for userdatas.
I agree with Egor this will break compatibility, but in the other hand every library have to name their own type meta field if they want to treat some objects differently. For example there is a JSON library with __jsontype field to handle different table encoding.

On 24 Dec 2020, 16:46 +0300, Egor Skriptunoff <egor.skriptunoff@gmail.com>, wrote:

On Thu, Dec 24, 2020 at 1:54 PM DarkWiiPlayer wrote:

if changing the behavior of `type` is considered a bad idea

IMO, it's a bad idea to break compatibility with widespread check:

if type(v) == "table" then

 

I'd love to at least see some other function that behaves like this

The similar problem with numeric subtype was solved by introducing math.type()

So, it might be a good decision to introduce table.type()

If there is no "__name" metafield, table.type() may return "table"/"userdata"

You may ask:
Why should this function be located in the "table" library while it should work with both tables and userdata?

My answer:  Why not?

We already have functions in the "math" library working with strings: math.min(), math.max()

math.min("11", "2") == "11"  -- contra-mathematical behavior

So, why not have a function in the "table" library working with userdata?  :-)