On 22 September 2015 at 17:42, Stefan Karpinski <ste...@karpinski.org> wrote:
> Responding with a solicitation for help in an open source project is not a > rhetorical ploy – it's a legitimate request for contribution. > It can be either. It depends on context and intent. I have seen that comment used both ways. I once saw a seminar that suggested that as a technique to get rid of people you don't want to deal with (e.g. because the person is disruptive in some way). A lecture on the importance of printing numbers is also not helpful and > pretty irritating. Yes, printing things is important, especially numbers. > Everyone is well aware, myself included – that's why I spent a month > implementing our generic printf in the first place. It will get fixed. > I don't know if this is a response to me or someone else. I never gave a lecture on the importance of printing numbers. At least, I never intended to and I don't know what I said that would come across like that. Anyway, I appreciate that you are busy with probably more important things, and I thank you for the work you have already done. My email was harsher than it should have been, but I was replying comments from Tomas. I was not trying to file a complaint with the Julia devs. I know that you know about the @sprintf() issue, and I was not trying to remind you of it. I took issue with Tomas saying that printf() was not implemented because the devs were trying to decide what the right implementation should be. I don't think that this is, or should be, the right reason to not implement printf(). I suspected that the real reason was, as you said, that there is more work on your planet than just printf(). > In the mean time, several viable solutions have been provided > (repeatedly), including... > I was not aware of the eval() option, but I was aware of the others. In particular, I spent a while experimenting with C's printf() function, but I was not able to make a generic wrapper around it. This means that, for me, a direct call to C's printf is no more useful than the existing @sprintf macro. I also compared Formatter.jl with @sprintf and I decided that @sprintf served me better. > 2. *Use Formatting.jl.* If you don't care for the interface, help improve > it. Help could take the form of pull requests, of just polite issues opened > to suggest how the interface could be enhanced. Calling it "next to > useless" and dismissing out of hand is rude and not particularly > constructive. > I was rude and I apologize. I don't think that Formatting.jl can be fixed. I think that there is probably a good reason it only provides sprintf1(). I don't think it would be news to the developers that a sprintf() that takes more than one parameter is desirable. If they haven't done it, it is because they can't. > 3. *Use C's printf.* Since this seems to be what you want and you can > easily call C from Julia, what's stopping you? > > julia> ccall(:printf, Cint, > (Cstring, Cint, Cstring, Cdouble), > "%05d %-5s %5.2f\n", 123, "flux", pi) > 00123 flux 3.14 > 18 > > > It's not the most convenient interface in the world, but a little wrapping > would solve that. (It may also be incorrect since printf is a varargs > function – I was a little surprised that it worked – but using vprintf > would address that.) > Yes, this is the approach I tried to work on. I was trying to make a wrapper. But I was unable to make a generic one. Similar to the @eval option, you end up having to make a wrapper for the specific format you want to print. This means that, in the end, I am better off just writing very long lines with @sprintf. Anyway, I again apologize for my harsh tone, I hope I have clarified some of my thoughts, I hope I have re-assured you that I did look at the alternatives, and I thank you for your work in Julia. Daniel.
