Compile time int to string conversion in BetterC

[bauss]

On Friday, 19 August 2022 at 13:47:41 UTC, Paul Backus wrote:
> On Friday, 19 August 2022 at 10:22:25 UTC, bauss wrote:
>> Is there a reason why .stringof is implementation defined and 
>> not clearly defined in the spec how types and declarations 
>> should be treated when being "converted to a string"?
>>
>> I find it really odd that it's implementation defined and you 
>> essentially can't rely on it anywhere.
>>
>> It's something that has baffled me a lot.
>>
>> Like are there something I'm missing that means it cannot be 
>> specified?
>
> Basically, `.stringof` is what the compiler uses when it needs 
> to display something in an error message. If it were locked 
> down in the spec, then making improvements to error messages 
> would in some cases require a deprecation cycle.
>
> That said, it might still be worth specifying the behavior in a 
> few specific cases—e.g., guaranteeing that `.stringof` on an 
> integer value will always produce a valid integer literal.

Yeah I mean not all of its behavior has to be implementation 
defined.