[ANSI-Smalltalk] #contents on <collectionStream> (was: #contents on WriteStream)

[Bruce Badger]

On 20/10/2008, Richard O'Keefe <ok at cs.otago.ac.nz> wrote:
> > It would be nice if the standard was
> > for <collectionStream> to provide both
> >
> >       contents        ->      upTo: readLimit
> > and
> >       currentContents ->      upTo: position
> >
>
>  Agreed.  That still leaves us with the problem that
>  at least VA, VW, and Squeak don't conform to the
>  standard's definition of #contents.

The problem is setting a goal for all dialects to aim for.  For that
we need the Step documents capturing the value from these discussions.

>  It would also be nice if ReadStream, ReadWriteStream,
>  and WriteStream were consistent, and the only consistent
>  specification around is the one in the standard.

Or perhaps there needs to be a family of stream classes each with
obvious behaviour.  It would be nice to have as much consistency as
possible, but things like >>contents will inevitably be different
depending on the underlying 'collection'.

>  But if major implementations haven't caught up with the
>  1998 standard yet, then maybe they won't ever.

Heh - perhaps they have left it behind and it's the standards work
that needs to catch up.

All the best,
    Bruce
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