Re: [patch] extend guile plugin connectivity

[Floris Kraak <floris snow nl>]

On Tue, Jul 02, 2002 at 06:45:33PM +0200, Jon Kåre Hellan wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-07-02 at 16:52, Floris Kraak wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > This patch allows guile calls to hand gnumeric data other than
> > type 'string' from within the guile plugin. Diffed against 1.0.8.
>
>
> I don't see anything wrong with it.
>
> On the other hand - I am probably just revealing my ignorance here - but
> what is the point? You turn the value into a Scheme string before
> passing it to Guile. You can already pass integers as Scheme numbers
> with value-get-as-int, and floats as Scheme bignums with
> value-get-as-float.

Apparently, the main reason is convenience.

> These have the problem that you're supposed to know the value type. If
> you want to improve the Guile plugin, wouldn't it be better to declare
> the 'value-get-as-' gang deprecated, and make a 'value-get-value' (lousy
> name!) which returns a Scheme value of the type most appropriate to the
> Gnumeric value?
>
> (Is anybody actually using the Guile plugin?)

Maybe. Probably. This is a quick hack joost implemented because
it made the guile plugin more usable for him. I am not
claiming this particular problem couldn't be adressed differently,
or even better; This is merely passing along the code we have.

(The obvious answer to the other question here is an empathic 'yes',
by the way. In fact, joost claims it is 'very useful' and is using
it to export gnumeric fields to a database. This by the way
exposes a problem with constant field recalculations but that is
a different problem and a different patch)

Regards,
Floris Kraak
-- 
Q:      Why did the tachyon cross the road?
A:      Because it was on the other side.