07:01 <hightower3> Not sure if this received a comment/suggestion yesterday - if I am reading a string from IO (terminated by \0), what's the best way to define max length?

09:51 <SamantazFox_> hightower3: <Blacksmoke16> asked "you mean like read x bytes from the IO?"

09:52 <hightower3> I meant like, I want to read a string terminated by \0, but read at most X bytes. If the function reads more than X and it's still not \0, it should stop, or raise, or whatever.

09:56 <SamantazFox_> hightower3: maybe `IO.read_string` is what you need?

09:56 <SamantazFox_> https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.1.1/IO.html#read_string(bytesize:Int):String-instance-method

09:59 <SamantazFox_> There's also gets, which won't raise: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.1.1/IO.html#gets(delimiter:Char,limit:Int,chomp=false):String?-instance-method

10:03 <hightower3> this first function says 'reads exactly bytesize'. I don't know how many bytes there are, I only know that I don't want to read more than max allowed value (e.g. 16 bytes).

10:04 <hightower3> Aha gets seems interesting, I didn't think offhand that it has a limit value

10:10 <hightower3> great, thanks

10:56 <SamantazFox_> yw :)

14:12 <SamantazFox_> `.is_a?()` should work in a macro, right?

14:13 <SamantazFox_> {% for ivar in @type.instance_vars %} // {% if ivar.is_a?(Array) %} // # code // {% end %} // {% end %}

14:13 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> yes, but macros use diff types

14:13 <SamantazFox_> diff types?

14:13 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> https://crystal-lang.org/api/master/Crystal/Macros.html

14:14 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> `ivar : MetaVar`

14:21 <SamantazFox_> Ah!

14:21 <SamantazFox_> And same would go for `ivar.type.is_a?`, I guess, right?

14:22 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> maybe? or `ivar.type == Array` might work too...

14:23 <SamantazFox_> I've tried that, it doesn't work (because it's an `Array(String)`)

14:24 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> `ivar.type <= Array`

14:26 <SamantazFox_> That works, thanks :)

14:26 <SamantazFox_> Though, it's so counter-intuitive xD

14:26 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> it's not wrong tho

14:26 <SamantazFox_> Idk, I don't know enough crystal to tell

14:27 <SamantazFox_> for me, `<=` means "smaller than or equal to"

14:28 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> in this case it means https://crystal-lang.org/api/master/Crystal/Macros/TypeNode.html#%3C=(other:TypeNode):BoolLiteral-instance-method

14:30 <SamantazFox_> I gotta be honnest: the documentation for the macros is lacking a ton of concepts.

14:30 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> pretty much :/

16:53 <SamantazFox_> https://play.crystal-lang.org/#/r/btny

16:53 <SamantazFox_> why that doesn't work

16:53 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> `compact!` doesn't change the type of the array

16:54 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> even if in practice it wouldn't have any `nil` values anymore

16:54 <SamantazFox_> arggghhhh

16:54 <SamantazFox_> thanks

17:05 <FromGitter> <RespiteSage> Are there existing issues for adding that documentation? I think we definitely need both guide-based docs and more extensive reference docs.

17:05 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> not that im aware of

17:07 <FromGitter> <RespiteSage> The difficulty from my perspective is that it seems like the people with the most extensive experience with macros (you, Ary, oprypin, maybe watzon) don't have the time/energy to also write up documentation, and the people who might be interested in writing documentation (possible me, for example) don't have the in-depth experience with macros.

17:11 <FromGitter> <Blacksmoke16> currently working on something that may help with that. Could serve as a good resource for backporting stuff into the publicdocs

17:13 <FromGitter> <RespiteSage> Oh, excellent. I look forward to seeing what you've got.

19:23 <FromGitter> <HertzDevil> the reference docs are also severely lacking in terms of actual formal specifications

22:07 <FromGitter> <HertzDevil> ```code paste, see link``` [https://gitter.im/crystal-lang/crystal?at=6128109799b7d97528d7caa7]

22:07 <FromGitter> <HertzDevil> it's time

22:45 <FromGitter> <christopherzimmerman> 1) 0 is looking awesome, great work anyone who contributed. Finally have a lot more time to work on Crystal related stuff again, seems to be in a really good place.