[Gambas-user] What's happening with True and False string conversions?

[John Anderson]

On 5/29/2021 12:07 AM, Tobias Boege wrote:
> On Fri, 28 May 2021, John Anderson wrote:
>>    Screenshot, system info, simple demo code and project are attached.
>>   >
>>   > What the heck?  Am I driving off into the weeds here?
>>   >
>>   > Thanks
>>   >
>>   > -John
>>   >
>>
>>   You must be careful with the functions that use localization and those
>>   who do not.
>>
>>   Str(), Val() and Print use localization.
>>
>>   CStr() and automatic conversion do not.
>>
>>      Thanks Benoît and BruceSteers!
>>
>>     I guess what is still a mystery is why does automatic conversion Print
>>     (expression) work perfectly fine when it's the only conversion on the
>>     line, but won't work if you've got more than one automatic conversion in
>>     one print statement?  That's what had me really confused.
>>
> Print takes an expression, not just a string. It then prints its Str()
> value. So `Print True` yields Str(True) which is "True". The reasoning
> is that when you Print to console, you usually want localized output[*].
>
> When you `Print True & False`, then True and False are subject to auto-
> matic conversion under the & operator for strings. Automatic conversion
> uses the low-level CStr() routine.
>
> If you want to print multiple values to console using Print, you can
> either explicitly convert them to strings using your preferred method,
> or you can use the special ,; separators in Print statements:
>
>    Print True; False   ' "TrueFalse"
>    Print True;; False  ' "True False"
>    Print True, False   ' "True\tFalse"
>
> These operators insert nothing, a space or a tab between expressions
> and print each expression using Str(), as Print normally does.
>
> Think of ; as a Print-specific operator which does & but whose conversion
> is Str() instead of CStr().
>
> Best,
> Tobias
>
> [*] The flip side of this is that you must be careful when your output
>      is intended for machines. Printing a Float is subject to localization
>      as well and the decimal separator depends on the locale under which
>      your program runs. In this case you should explicitly `Print CStr(float)`
>      to get the period as decimal separator, which seems to be the standard
>      notation and is most likely to be understood by the receiving end
Thanks Tobias! That is very good and clear documentation on the 
subject.  That could go into the Gambas language keyword ref for "Print" 
maybe.

-John