Re: [Gretl-devel] Fwd: Re: slight inconsistency with strstr truth value

> Am 12.03.18 um 08:30 schrieb Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti > > > I'm sorry I'm chiming in only at this stage, but I find the whole issue > > quite confusing. In my view, Hansl should not aim at being too clever with > > strings. There already are many tools that are much better at that than > > Hansl will ever be (Python of course springs to mind). Maybe I'm being a > > little too conservative here, but in my eyes a Boolean expression is > > something that should unambiguously map to 0 or non-zero. True, "if foo" > > (foo being a string) can be interpreted as shorthand for "if strlen(foo)", > > but then the problem arises on cases like > > > > if foo || bar > > if foo && bar > > if foo * bar > > if foo + bar > > if !foo > > > > ("bar" being some arbitrary variable, such as a string but also possibly a > > scalar, a matrix etc), etcetera, in which we would have first to guess > > whether the intended outcome is Boolean or not and then act accordingly. > > > > Too complicated IMO. If it weren't for backward compatibility, I'd ban "if > > <string>" altogether, but at this point I would guess we could allow "if > > foo" (where "foo" is a named string, but not something that evaluates to a > > string) for historical reasons, but no more than > > Yes, I think that s the conclusion we’ve reached as well. And > because it was undocumented “if foo” will also be banned after > the respective function packages (mine, perhaps Oleh’s?) have > been adjusted. At least that’s my interpretation of the > discussion.