Re: `compare-strings' style question

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

tomas@tuxteam.de writes:

> On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 12:39:33PM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
>> tomas@tuxteam.de writes:
>> 
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > In Elisp, I'm trying to test whether a string is a prefix of another.
>
> [...]
>
>> >   (when (eq (compare-strings foo 0 5 bar 0 5) t)
>> >     ...)
>> >
>> > which looks rather funny. My question: are there better idioms? Am I
>> > barking up the wrong function?
>> 
>> (unless (numberp ...
>> 
>> or
>> 
>> (if (symbolp ...
>
> Thanks. Still looks a bit funna, though :-)

In my opinion, t was the wrong choice for a match.  nil would have been
much better because you can't use the result of compare-strings as a
condition.

But I suppose there is not much one can do now because of compatibility.

-- 
David Kastrup