<function name="tobool" parent="Global" type="libraryfunc"> <description>Attempts to return an appropriate boolean for the given value</description> <realm>Shared and Menu</realm> <file line="248-L251">lua/includes/util.lua</file> <args> <arg name="val" type="any">The object to be converted to a boolean</arg> </args> <rets> <ret name="" type="boolean">**false** for the boolean false. **false** for "false". **false** for "0". **false** for numeric 0. **false** for nil. **true** otherwise.</ret> </rets> </function> <example> <description>Demonstrate the output of this function with various values.</description> <code> print("boolean true:", tobool(true)) print("boolean false:", tobool(false)) print("string true:", tobool("true")) print("string false:", tobool("false")) print("numeric 0:", tobool(0)) print("string 0:", tobool("0")) print("string 1:", tobool("1")) print("nil:", tobool(nil)) print("text string:", tobool("not a boolean")) print("empty string:", tobool("")) </code> <output> ``` &lt;nowiki&gt;boolean true: true boolean true: true boolean false: false string true: true string false: false numeric 0: false string 0: false string 1: true nil: false text string: true empty string: true&lt;/nowiki&gt;⤶ empty string: true⤶ ``` </output> </example>