[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I don't want to seem to be defending this patch too vigorously,
And sorry if I made it appear to need defending. I was just commenting. As a matter of fact, I will certainly be using your patch in SQL::Statement to test for number/string when I add type-checking. > But the purity is not reduced by optionally requiring a *standard* XS module. Yes, right, it's optional and it's standard, sounds like a win-win situation. Being optional is important because I am thinking ahead to situations in which even standard modules are missing (e.g. ports of Perl to palm and handheld devices). > And the string eval happens once at startup, at minute cost compared to loading > PurePerl.pm, for example. Or one could do a 'constant'->import(...) I guess I'm unsure about those versions of Perl that have a memory leak with string eval and whether such a one-time use would cause problems. > I've never used neat(), but if it's useful, maybe it needs another way to be > told whether a value is a number. I don't use neat() directly much myself but I do use dbish (which uses neat) and see dbish as a natural counterpart to PurePerl -- it means one can have a command interface to SQL databases anywhere that Perl 5.004 and above is running regardless of compiler situation. So your patch definitely helps. -- Jeff
