World: r3wp

When I first started in REBOL, I also aliased it as &H (as a func 
name), since that's the hex notation prefix in BASIC and can be used 
as a func name, unlike "0x"

It is a little extra work to use a func to convert values, but not 
awful. If you need to use it heavily in a particular app, I'd consider 
using a dialect.

binary tools powerpack then?

You bet. Outline the domain and we can cook up a killer dialect.

the problem I have with dialects is they are not extensible

it would be worthy of its own group, wouldn't it?

I think so Henrik, for better focus.

I'll create it now

I mean without rewriting the original dialect parser itself.

Who says Max?

OT: regarding dialects: could 'any be an option in parse? i often 
have
 parse blk [ any[  .. ] ]
would like 
  parse/any blk [ .. ]

when I tried to plug within VID... man it was awfull.

I ended having to piggy back on top of VID.

The Logo interpreter I did (early in REBOL for me) allowed user defined 
functions; basically it just added things to the list of parse rules 
it knew about, naive, but semi-functional. :-)

it predates the block-parser, and that shows.

and that means actually calling the VID parser many many times...

rebgui looks much cleaner IMHO.

Dialects have to be planned for extensibility, just like languages.

gregg, exactly... you have to dialect your dialect's  dialecting 
ability  ;-)

ANY - Not sure what you mean Volker.

but that's usually harder than the dialect itself, and there are 
no ways to ensure that this door, won't corrupt your dialect itself..

group created, lets move binary stuff to there

i need two nested blocks. nearly everytime i use 'parse.

i.e. why would a refinement be better than using PARSEs ANY keyword?

Ahhhh.

Would it always return TRUE if /any is used then?

I will try to re-introduce the previous block parsing engine I had 
built for glass into the newer code.

And that are often 3-liner, which are then 5-liner
parse/any files[
  file!(..) | url! (..)
]

that dialect (not parse based) could easily implement OOP style polymorphism 
within the dialect!

No, only 'true if the whole rule matches.

I think that might be confusing, because ANY in a parse rule implies 
optionality.

although an error would be nice too, if it does not
  parse/error blk [..]

would throw an error on fail. maybe with hints about the position.

In my use 'any means loop

How about just using a PARSE-ANY wrapper mezz of your own?

Ugly. parse/any looks nicer. And its a bit slower? But does the job.

and its an extra definition in every short script (i never use %user.r 
for libs..)

Well, post it as a wish then. I haven't needed it, and I'm concerned 
that the dual meaning of ANY in the context of PARSE might be confusing, 
but Carl has the final say.

must not be 'any, its just what is now used inside the dialect. maybe 
parse/many ?

Most scripting languages (like Ruby) and even some programming languages 
(like Java) support the string-concatenation operator "+".

>> "a" + "b" 
== "ab"


I know that we can use the JOIN function, but a + operator for string 
would be nice too. Why doesn't REBOL do so?

>> "a" + 2 + "b"
** Script Error: Cannot use add on string! value
** Near: "a" + 2 + "b"

>> rejoin ["a" 2 "b"]
== "a2b"

What could be more elegant ?

:) (and reads well to).

Yes, I find all those interspersed concatenation operators tiresome 
and ugly.

'rejoin' sounds like it was already joined once

uhuh.

If I knew nothing if programming languages, I would think "a" + "b" 
= "c"   ;-)

when I first met programming language - basic on 8 bit home computer, 
I could not get how A = A + 1 can be valid :-)

to try to patch ubuntu REBOL/Core today for serial ports, I did:
reb-orig: read/binary %rebol
replace/case reb-orig "ttyC0" "ttyc0"
write/binary %rebol-patched reb-orig


...but when I try to run the patched binary it gives some crazy line 
errors.   I differenced the two executibles in REBOL and got some 
crazy differences more than just what I thought I was changing.

(2 of my computers died, so I don't have the hex-edit.r of Ryans...so 
was seeing if I could just patch the binary with REBOL itself.   
Perhaps the replace by strings did some inherent conversion of the 
REBOL executible...not sure.

you might want to count how many there are first?  if only a few, 
maybe replacing one at a time will end up working?

I think there is a way to specify your serial ports. I don't remember 
how. I but I have done it the past. I should search my files.