Monte Goulding's day off? ; -) mergJSON - Documented Bug or Feature?

[Dar Scott]

I'm coming in this late and I'm confused.

I made a JSON library a couple years ago (not an external) and I have been encouraged to make it available, but with JSON now being built-in, I didn't bother.  Now, there is MergJSON?  


> On Jun 29, 2016, at 9:06 AM, Mark Waddingham <mark at livecode.com> wrote:
> 
> On 2016-06-29 16:58, Lagi Pittas wrote:
>> Hi Mark,
>> Thanks for the replies. But your second response I don't understand and the
>> whole point of what I was getting at.
>> "I suppose there could be an option to choose a 'number of decimal places'
>> option passed to the library - however, you will then potentially lose
>> information in your numbers. Therefore, it is probably better to do the
>> rounding in script after loading the JSON file."
>> If  "reals" are returned as  strings anyway then if the real says 2.30 how
>> can I be losing any precision if 2.30 is what's in the file?. The option
>> though would be a good idea but in the calling routine to MergJSON.. If it
>> is left blank or false then it uses the current setting of number format
>> or if there is a string then that will be the format it uses.
> 
> Ah - this is the critical point...
> 
> MergJSON uses a C library which converts the text of a JSON input into a tree of values - these values are arrays, objects, numbers, strings, booleans etc. i.e. The output of this library is then processed by the external to convert it to a LiveCode array and string values...
> 
> This means that the external gets numbers from the JSON as IEEE754 doubles, and then has to format them for return as strings. As the original string has already been converted to a number at this point, the external must format the numbers with enough decimal places so that you don't lose any information. Hence why you are probably best off processing the output of the external in LiveCode Script, rounding any numbers you know need to be rounded.
> 
>> If I look at the Arrays using the variable display in the debugger they are
>> all showing as 2 decimals so I would expect them to export in the same
>> format - or am I again missing something about the debugger?
> 
>> If added  global variable xx in the debugger with value 1.3456 and that is
>> how it shows and ll 2 decimal place prices still show the same so LC
>> "knows" how I want to see them.
> 
> The debugger displayed values using the numberFormat settings - usually 6 decimal places.
> 
> However, an important thing to remember about LiveCode Script is that if something is a string, then it will remain a string. You only get actually numbers internally when you perform operations on values which need to be numbers. So:
> 
>    put 1.43858239402803492304
> 
> will display:
> 
>    1.43858239402803492304
> 
> But:
> 
>   put 1.43858239402803492304 + 0
> 
> will display:
> 
>   1.438582
> 
> As numbers are rounded using numberFormat when converted to strings.
> 
> Warmest Regards,
> 
> Mark.
> 
> -- 
> Mark Waddingham ~ mark at livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
> LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
> 
> _______________________________________________
> use-livecode mailing list
> use-livecode at lists.runrev.com
> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences:
> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
>