Re: bug in comparison of NSCells

[David Ayers]

Benhur Stein wrote:

> With the recent change that obsoleted -compare: in NSObject, NSCells 
> that are
> text cells, containing attributed strings instead of strings are logging
> a warning when compared. Should the -compare: method in NSCell be 
> extended
> to include the comparison of NSAttributedStrings, or 
> NSAttributedString be
> extended to include a -compare: method (which I think would be better, 
> even
> if not in Openstep)? 

Hello Benhur!

Interesting indeed.  I've just checked on OS 4.2 and also had it 
confirmed for OS X that NSAttributedString doesn't implement -compare:  
Right now I'm leaning towards changing the implementation of 
NSCell-compare: to:
 ...
 return [[self stringValue] compare: [(NSCell*)otherCell stringValue]];
/me wonders whether to check whether comparing an attributed cell with a 
non attributed cell raises an exception on OS 4.2/X...

OTOH, I also feel that NSAttributedStrings should be comparable.  So 
I'll wait on some feedback from others, on whether we want this extension.

But one good thing is, that we did find this bug, as these cells are 
currently compared by the location of their _contents in memory.

Cheers,
David