Re: GH replacement proposal (includes a bit of Unicode)

[Marius Vollmer]

Dirk Herrmann <address@hidden> writes:

> Marius Vollmer wrote:
>
>>  Hmm, yes, that might make sense. However, the -1 idiom is pretty
>>  much standard for this kind of interface, no?
>
> I personally don't like this kind of 'one value, several meanings' paradigm:
>
> - What, if instead of -1, you pass -2? [...]
> - Readability suffers. [...]

Yes, I agree that the -1 idiom is not self explaining, but it is well
established and people will instantly recognize it.  I'd even argue
that they will expect to be able to pass -1 for a 'len' parameter and
will be annoyed when they find out that Guile doesn't allow it.

>   Note that with scm_from_locale_memory there will probably be no
> readability problem either, since whoever calls
> scm_from_locale_memory must be aware of the length, such that the
> call will typically look like
>
> SCM s = scm_from_locale_memory (str, len);
>
> with "len" being hopefully some sensible name, thus leading to
> self-documenting code.

This can be had with scm_from_locale_string as well, of course.  When
you write

  SCM s = scm_from_locale_string (str, len);

thats just as readable, I'd say.


Soo, I'm inclined to leave it as it is...

-- 
GPG: D5D4E405 - 2F9B BCCC 8527 692A 04E3  331E FAF8 226A D5D4 E405