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Re: [Help-smalltalk] asString for Floats?


From: Stephen Compall
Subject: Re: [Help-smalltalk] asString for Floats?
Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2006 15:32:25 -0600
User-agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 (Macintosh/20060909)

J Pfersich wrote:
> For the Character, asString gives me the representation I'm looking for,
> whereas the Float only has printString available. Shouldn't there be
> a asString method available for Floats?

No, and here's why.

st> #($p $o $n $g) asString printNl!
'pong'
st> #($p $o $n $g) printNl!
($p $o $n $g )

In other words, the "printable representation" (what #printOn: puts on
its stream argument) isn't the same as "an equivalent object of class
String" (what #asString answers).

Languages that rely on a single method convert-to-string protocol blur
this important distinction.

-- 
Stephen Compall
http://scompall.nocandysw.com/blog




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