[FeatureRequest]: Have isnan return true for an array value instead of error

[DonStauffer]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I'd like to be able to tell whether something is an array or not.

Describe the solution you propose.

I propose having the isnan function return true for an array value

Describe alternatives you've considered

Everything I've tried throws an error either when the value is or is not an array. For example, passing the first element of an array to exists produces an error (logically) if the value is actually not an array.

Provide any additional context or information.

What I'm doing right now is trying to pass a parameter to a macro, where the macro behaves differently if you pass a 1D or 2D array.

[dc42]

The isNaN function is intended to return true specifically for the case in which the operand is a floating point number which is a "not a number" as defined by IEEE arithmetic, for example when attempting to take the square root or logarithm of a negative number. So I don't believe it would be appropriate here.

You can tell if a value is a non-empty array like this:

if exists(var.myValue[0])
  ...

I have verified that this works in firmware 3.6.1. However, this won't distinguish between an empty array and a non-array.

Perhaps we need a function like isArray(...) or a more general type enquiry function.

[dc42]

I'm closing this issue because we're not going to implement it. Feel free to add comments if you have suggestions for alternative mechanisms to determine whether a variable is an array, or more generally to determine the type of a variable.

[adambx]

Suggesting a function called type() that would output a string type identifier like int, float, arr/array, obj/object, str/string null?.
Of course this would add some overhead if you want to check types during runtime if type(var.variable) == "array", but it would add the benefit of echoing types directly with echo type(var.variable) instead of

if isArray(var.variable)
    echo "array"

if isString(var.variable)
    echo "string"

depends on the use case.