Semantics of toString

Don nospam at nospam.com
Thu Nov 5 13:14:18 PST 2009


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?

It's a hack from the early days of D. Should be unavailable unless the 
-debug flag is set, to discourage people from using it. I hate it.




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