List/Map remove method return value

Coryf88

Currently List.remove returns null and Map.remove returns 0 or 1.
My suggestion is to return the value that was removed or null if the index/key doesn't exist.

jstrout

Thanks for the suggestion! That'd be a very C-like thing to do... kind of like allowing assignment in the middle of an expression (which MiniScript also doesn't do). I'm not sure this is the sort of thing that leads to clear code. But I'm willing to be convinced if there's a good argument for it. Can you show some good use cases?

Coryf88

I'm not sure why you believe it'd be a C-like thing, since C doesn't have lists and C++/C# doesn't return the removed value. Lua, Python, and Ruby do.

It'd improve consistency.

An example would be List.remove could be used directly for a Queue (FIFO).

x = ["a", "b", "c", "d"]
while x.len > 0
    print(x[0])
    x.remove(0)
    // Above could be done with just:
    //print(x.remove(0))
end while

jstrout

Sorry, I was speaking in general — C libraries often both do an operation, and return something at the same time. You're absolutely right that the specifics here have no analog, though.

If you want to use a List as a queue, we already have List.pull for that:

x = ["a", "b", "c", "d"]
while x.len > 0
    print(x.pull)
end while

And of course List.pop if you want to use it as a stack.

Coryf88

Sorry, I overlooked List.pull. Well, then I don't have any good use cases for it and obviously one can just get the value directly if needed.

hilbert

I think this issue can be safely closed.