Current VisualWorks (8.x) has #Object>>displayString but it is not
implemented in terms of #displayOn:
Dolphin Smalltalk is the one that has #displayString implemented in
terms of #displayOn: and uses #displayString in all end user
presentations of the object, so for aPerson, the inspector would show 'a
Person('John Doe')' and on a end user ListView the same instance would
show 'John Doe'.
It is like that since Dolphin 5 at least (~2003?).
Regards,
On 10/04/2018 19:04, Benoit St-Jean wrote:
> In the "old" days, programmers made sure to respect the following
> conventions : you implement #storeOn:, #displayString: and #printOn:
> . Eventually, an object will be sent #storeString and #printString
> and will use your #whateverOn: implementation.
>
> It looks like that good habit that I've learned at university
> looooooong ago got lost somewhere. It looks like no one uses
> #displayString anymore and rely solely on #printString instead! I had
> a teacher once telling me #displayString had a crappy implementation :
> it just sent #printString and that to be "code clean", one should
> implement #displayOn: and modify #displayString accordingly.
>
> But if I recall, VW at the time introduced #displayOn: for widgets and
> other things, hence why #displayString never sent #displayOn:.
>
> To make a long story short of what should have been and what it's
> always been, here's an excellent paper on the subject!
>
> http://esug.org/data/HistoricalDocuments/TheSmalltalkReport/ST07/04wo.pdf
>
>
> -----------------
> Benoît St-Jean
> Yahoo! Messenger: bstjean
> Twitter: @BenLeChialeux
> Pinterest: benoitstjean
> Instagram: Chef_Benito
> IRC: lamneth
> Blogue: endormitoire.wordpress.com
> "A standpoint is an intellectual horizon of radius zero". (A. Einstein)
>
>
> On Tuesday, April 10, 2018, 11:28:57 a.m. EDT, Esteban A. Maringolo
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Isn't #displayString implemented in terms of #displayOn: the same way
> #printString is implemented in terms of "printOn:"?
>
> And in the case of String #displayString should return the receiver (it
> is, self), so the following should be true.
>
> | s |
> s := 'Hello, ''Funny'' World'.
> s displayString = s. "true"
> s printString = s. "false"
>
> Regards,
>
>
> On 10/04/2018 12:21, Denis Kudriashov wrote:
> > Hi.
> >
> > According to the comment of #displayString it should be used as default
> > textual representation of objects in the UI:
> >
> > "While printString is about to give a detailled information about an
> > object, displayString is a message that should return a short
> > string-based representation to be used by list and related UI
> > frameworks. By default, simply return printString."
> > "asString should not be implemented in Object, and kept for
> > conversion between strings, symbols, text and characters."
> >
> > But String itself does not respect this message:
> >
> > 'some string' displayString " ==> '''someString''' "
> >
> >
> > Is it bug? Or is there any reason for this?
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Denis
>
>
> --
> Esteban A. Maringolo
>
>
--
Esteban A. Maringolo
