On Jun 9, 2022, at 6:44 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode
<use-livecode@lists.runrev.com<mailto:use-livecode@lists.runrev.com>> wrote:
So I'm currently sitting here about to embark on fixing
<https://quality.livecode.com/show_bug.cgi?id=23653> (which is the final thing
to sort out before being able to merge my constant expression patch) and I was
reminded of 'convertOctals'.
Now, generally, I am somewhat averse to actually removing any language feature
(even those we have deprecated, unless we absolutely have to!) - however, I
would really like to make convertOctals have no effect at all in 10.0+ as it
adds a disproportionate amount of complexity compared to (what I think, at
least) its utility is (particularly in the context of things 'coming next' like
the script compiler).
So three questions:
1) Do you know what convertOctals is, and what it does?
Nope
2) If you do, have you ever actually used it in any scripts which are actually
still in use?
Nyet
3) If you do use it in any scripts which are still in use, would you be
willing to change them to not use it?
N/A
4) If you do use/have used it, had you ever noticed that it has been slightly
broken for years?
Wait, you said three questions. But no.
Now, its always better to offer a carrot when there is a stick (or in this
case, an axe) being wielded and the carrot in this case would be to expand the
numeric literal syntax to add both explicit octal and binary number literals
alongside hexadecimal:
0xabcdef - hex literal
0o777 - octal literal
0b101110101
The key difference between 0o777 and using 0777 (with convertOctals true) is
that the former is not ambiguous at parse time, it doesn't require a runtime
property set to true in order for the engine to convert the string to a number
correctly.
Please let me know your thoughts :)
Warmest Regards,
Mark.
P.S. In the scheme of 'breaking changes' - we've already made a number of them
for 10 already, and my gut tells me removing convertOctals is likely to cause
less consternation than those we already have - but I could be wrong!
--
Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com<mailto:m...@livecode.com> ~
http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
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Devin Asay
Office of Digital Humanities
Brigham Young University
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