From a87f7718c6e42fa2edabe73a571d27badf9fc6c4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: CodeFetch <me@bibbl.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2020 05:08:27 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] packages: introduce toboolean function in gluon.util

This commit introduces a simple function to convert standard values which
are regularly being used as booleans like numbers and strings to booleans
to mimic the behavior of other programming languages.
---
 .../luasrc/usr/lib/lua/gluon/util.lua         | 24 +++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 24 insertions(+)

diff --git a/package/gluon-core/luasrc/usr/lib/lua/gluon/util.lua b/package/gluon-core/luasrc/usr/lib/lua/gluon/util.lua
index a3c5456f..a1eacb9d 100644
--- a/package/gluon-core/luasrc/usr/lib/lua/gluon/util.lua
+++ b/package/gluon-core/luasrc/usr/lib/lua/gluon/util.lua
@@ -26,6 +26,30 @@ function M.trim(str)
 	return (str:gsub("^%s*(.-)%s*$", "%1"))
 end
 
+-- Allows the conversion to booleans of standard values which are regularly being used as
+-- booleans like numbers (everything but 0 is true) and strings like "True"
+function M.toboolean(val)
+	-- 'nil' and 'false' are false
+	if not val then return false end
+
+	-- use the string representation
+	val = tostring(val)
+
+	-- if it is literally 'true' in lowercase
+	if val:lower() == 'true' then
+		return true
+	end
+
+	val = tonumber(val)
+	-- every number but 0 is true
+	if val and val ~= 0 then
+		return true
+	end
+
+	-- everything else is false
+	return false
+end
+
 function M.contains(table, value)
 	for k, v in pairs(table) do
 		if value == v then