Semantics of toString

[Jesse Phillips]

Justin Johansson Wrote:

> I assert that the semantics of "toString" or similarly named/purposed methods/functions in many
> PL's (including and not limited to D) is ill-defined.
> 
> To put this statement into perspective, I would be most appreciative of D NG readers
> responding with their own idea(s) of what the semantics of "toString" are (or should be)
> in a language agnostic ideology.
> 
> If there are more than, say, two or three different views on the said semantics then my
> "ill-definition" assertion is surely correct.
> 
> If there are no replies on this matter, then guess I'm left concludeless.
> 
> Just thinking in the language round-up that this is (just another) one of the things
> we should address as a community.
> 
> So what does "toString" mean to you?
> 
> **beers,
> Justin
> 
> **caveat: free beer offer available in-store only
> 

Well some Java author said that the toSting method was only intended for debugging, but list containers use it so... I don't have that reference :(

You can also check out the question on StackOverflow

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/563676/is-tostring-only-useful-for-debugging

But personally, output to the end-user should not come from toString and program logic should not be based on the string returned from toString.