Re: how to submit a feature request for glib? oversight?

[Peter Jay Salzman <p dirac org>]

begin: Eric M. Monsler <emonsler beamreachnetworks com> quote
> > Peter Jay Salzman <p dirac org> writes:
> (snip)
> > > is there a reason i'm not thinking of why they don't do this? 
 
hi eric,

thanks for the thoughtful reply.

> Even if the API were being created from scratch, I think that a very
> good argument could be made that the length should not be returned,
> because doing so would encourage developers to keep track of the string
> length separately.  
 
i'm not sure i agree with "very good".  i'm not sure it would encourage such
a thing, simply because the length is always obtainable by:

        mystring->len

if every single solitary function in glib returned the length of the string,
i can't see it encouraging keeping track of lengths because mystring->len is
there.   we're assuming the programmer has intelligence.  if not, he/she gets
what he/she deserves!   :)


> There is already a public field specifying the length.  That should be
> accessed when the length is required.  Doing so prevents a whole class
> of possible errors in which the length might be stored, and then later
> used incorrectly after another manipulation of the GString.  
>
> Furthermore, given that a major feature of using GStrings is that the
> developer (and application) rarely needs to care low long the string is
> when doing operations on it, returning the length all of the time would
> clutter the code considerably.

absolutely true.  but i'm not talking about returning the length of a string.
not at all!  i'm talking about returning the number of characters written to
a string.  very different indeed!   this information isn't as readily
available.  you have to:

1. store GString mystring->len somewhere
2. get strlen(char *)
3. subtract

it would be much easier to simply return the number of characters written.

anyway, it was just a thought.  it would also be more elegant for the glib
functions to mimic the corresponding glibc functions.  although i'm not
usually after elegance (i'm not that good of a programmer; i'm just someone
who enjoys programming more than he should).  i'm after functionality.  :)

i can see your point for the snprintf type functions (which do return a
GString, i think).  but the append and append_c functions (imho) would
certainly be more useful returning SOMETHING.  what i'm saying is that the
"something" should be the number of characters they write to the target
GString.   :)

pete

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