Re: [Gretl-devel] Suggestion for new string-checking built-in function
On Fri, 19 Aug 2016, Sven Schreiber wrote:
Am 19.08.2016 um 16:27 schrieb Allin Cottrell:
> On Fri, 19 Aug 2016, Sven Schreiber wrote:
>
> How about if we emulated C (sort of) and allowed empty and non-empty
> strings to evaluate as 0 and 1 where the context requires a Boolean
> result? Then you could just say
>
> if strstr(s1, "USA")
> # something
> else
> # something else
> endif
Looks good at first sight. But I certainly don't want to slow down the
parser.
Now enabled (at essentially zero cost). It can easily be reversed if
we find anything amiss with this behaviour.
BTW, the name of the 'strstr()' itself strikes me as
unintuitive. I often
find myself mistaking 'strsub()' for 'strstr()', because the
"sub" reminds me
of "substring" whereas in reality it comes from "substitute". So if
you allow
me to dream on for a second, 'strsubst()' instead of 'strsub()' would be
good, and 'strstr()' could become 'strfind()'.
So then the above would become:
if strfind(s1, "USA")
# something
...
Now wouldn't that be nice, hehe?
Hehe, indeed! I agree that strfind might be more intuitive, but we
chose strstr because it's the classic C name for this function. As for
strsub, I think that most languages that have a "find a sub-string"
function with "sub" in its name put the "sub" first and call it
"substr" or similar.
Allin