digitalmars.D - Re: Semantics of toString
- Jesse Phillips <jessekphillips+D gmail.com> Nov 05 2009
Justin Johansson Wrote:I assert that the semantics of "toString" or similarly named/purposed methods/functions in many PL's (including and not limited to D) is ill-defined. To put this statement into perspective, I would be most appreciative of D NG readers responding with their own idea(s) of what the semantics of "toString" are (or should be) in a language agnostic ideology. If there are more than, say, two or three different views on the said semantics then my "ill-definition" assertion is surely correct. If there are no replies on this matter, then guess I'm left concludeless. Just thinking in the language round-up that this is (just another) one of the things we should address as a community. So what does "toString" mean to you? **beers, Justin **caveat: free beer offer available in-store only
Well some Java author said that the toSting method was only intended for debugging, but list containers use it so... I don't have that reference :( You can also check out the question on StackOverflow http://stackoverflow.com/questions/563676/is-tostring-only-useful-for-debugging But personally, output to the end-user should not come from toString and program logic should not be based on the string returned from toString.
Nov 05 2009