flag: adds DurationDef, which uses time.ParseDuration f...

flag: adds DurationDef, which uses time.ParseDuration for defaults (instead of requiring an explicit time.Duration value)

[Sam, 2012-02-11 03:09:57]

An alternative might be to rename the current Duration to DurationRaw. I can't
think of a better name than DurationDef (which also doesn't really mean
anything). DurationParseDefaultString is a bit verbose. ;-)

[r2, 2012-02-11 03:27:50]

No, thanks. We're too close to Go 1 but I wouldn't be in favor anyway. First,
the flag package doesn't need this kind of feature creep. Second, there's no way
to handle parse errors, so the code just panics the program if the user makes a
typing mistake. (You don't even show the user the error.)

time.Duration is a fine type for a flag, and it works well. The other flag types
all get defined using the value type they implement and I see no reason that
time should be treated differently. The caller is capable of parsing the time.

-rob

[dsymonds, 2012-02-11 03:30:00]

This isn't worth it. Writing "10s" is shorter than 10*time.Second, but
the former is only checked at runtime, whereas the latter is checked
at compile time. Inflating the API for such a trivial gain is bad.


Dave.

[Sam, 2012-02-11 03:38:08]

All right.

On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 14:30, David Symonds <dsymonds@golang.org> wrote:
> This isn't worth it. Writing "10s" is shorter than 10*time.Second, but
> the former is only checked at runtime, whereas the latter is checked
> at compile time. Inflating the API for such a trivial gain is bad.
>
>
> Dave.