2009/10/20  <[email protected]>:
> Em 20/10/2009 10:04, Nicolas Cellier <[email protected]> 
> escreveu:
>
>> 2009/10/20  :
>>> I don't see where are we willing to arrive at.
>>>
>>> '' asNumber gives zero in several other Smalltalks (Dolphin and VW,
>>> for example) and used to work as Mariano mentions in earlier versions
>>> of Pharo (which makes me surmise is the way Squeak worked as well).
>>>
>>> So attempting addressing Nicolas point: the context where '' can be
>>> expected is when reading text from some other source (mainly text from
>>> a file) into you Pharo application.
>>>
>>> A library API has to have a reasonable balance between an excruciating
>>> "conceptual right" set of calls and the "principle of minimum
>>> surprise" for the corner cases in general.
>>>
>>> From this discussion, are we saying that for now on in order to have
>>> strings converted into numbers if we want to have the behaviour ''
>>> returning zero we shall change from '' asNumber to '' asNumberOrZero
>>> and this method will call a more general method like this?
>>>
>>> Number>>asNumberOrZero
>>> ^self asNumberOr: 0
>>>
>>> And
>>>
>>> Number>>asNumberOr: aNumber
>>> ^Number readFrom: self ifFail: [^aNumber]
>>>
>>> Just my .0199999....
>>>
>>>
>>
>> If this is an identified inter-dialect feature, then some applications
>> will rely on it, and then yes we SHOULD maintain the feature.
>
> Yes I think the crux is identifying if it is a feature that has become a 'de 
> facto standard' or not. . .
>
>>
>> But we can in no way keep all the silly other cases.
>> However, did you try these in other dialects
>
> FWIW:
>
>> ' ' asNumber.
>
> Returns 0 in VW and an exception in Dolphin (note that if you put '' instead 
> of ' ' in Dolphin it returns zero instead)
>
>> 'a' asNumber.
>
> Returns 0 in VW and an exception in Dolphin.
>
>> 'b2' asNumber.
>
> Returns 0 in VW and an exception in Dolphin.
>
>> etc...
>
> ST/X generates exceptions for all the cases above.
>
>
>>
>> I guess VW & Dolphin should fail in all these cases...
>> Squeak did not and would answer 0 in most cases, and that's what I
>> don't want to see anymore...
>>
>> Another question is should we authorize non blank trailing characters
>> ? I think no.
>> '2r' asNumber.
>> '2 + 3' asNumber.
>> etc..
>>
>
> We had a discussion about this in another thread but we did not arrived at a 
> final position if memory serves me.
>
> [snipped]
>
> HTH
>

In squeak, that started almost 4 years ago, and I remember some
complaints too in vwnc list around that time.

http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2006-April/103137.html
http://bugs.squeak.org/view.php?id=3512

Nicolas

> --
> Cesar Rabak
>
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