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Groups > comp.lang.forth > #33788

Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals

From Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid>
Subject Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals
Newsgroups comp.lang.forth
References (6 earlier) <2014Oct8.145606@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <V8udnS1fUb2WpqjJnZ2dnUU7-I-dnZ2d@supernews.com> <2014Oct8.173212@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <N_OdnXwI08V58ajJnZ2dnUVZ8nadnZ2d@supernews.com> <2014Oct9.160722@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at>
Message-ID <FL2dncik_pHsMKvJnZ2dnUU7-RmdnZ2d@supernews.com> (permalink)
Date 2014-10-09 10:44 -0500

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Anton Ertl <anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:
> Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> writes:
>>Anton Ertl <anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:
>>> Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> writes:
>>>>Anton Ertl <anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:
>>>>> Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> writes:
>>>>>> On the other hand, if someone really wants to create an
>>>>>>uninitialized local I can't see much harm in it.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The benefit of defining a local where it is properly initialized is
>>>>> that every read from the local produces a proper value.  You cannot
>>>>> read the uninitialized value.
>>>>
>>>>I'm not going to argue with that advantage, but it's hard to do that
>>>>if you're only allowed to define locals in one place.
>>> 
>>> Lifting that restriction is not that hard.
>>
>>Ummm.  I don't think that you can really say so for all
>>implementations.
> 
> Sure I can: For all implementations lifting that restriction is not
> that hard.
> 
> To support that claim, I have outlined how to do it in
> <2014Oct7.173637@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> and
> <2014Oct8.180623@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at>.

Hmmm.  I suppose "not that hard" is in the eye of the beholder.
Locals are not such a big deal that it's worth so much effort.

>>It is wrong in many ways, of which uninitialized locals are a fairly
>>minor part.
> 
> Uninitialized locals are the only part that's wrong in the proposal
> that I am aware of.

The part I really object to is the dummy return values (effectively a
comment) on the right hand side of the "--".  They are misleading.
With those included, and the implication that the locals declaration
be used instead of a stack comment, the whole proposal is so ugly that
I no longer care.  This is what I objected to, at length, when the
proposal was on the table.

>>>>> So the harm of uninitialized locals to the programmer is that he may
>>>>> make errors that would be caught (as "undefined word") if the locals
>>>>> were defined later, where they are properly initialized. 
>>>>
>>>>Sure, but I do not have to remind you that this is Forth: your bullet,
>>>>gun, and foot.  Initialized locals are already provided, and if you
>>>>prefer to initialize locals, add all of them to the initialized locals
>>>>list with whatever constant you prefer as the initial value.  The
>>>>problem is already solved.
>>> 
>>> No, by defining a local and initializing it to a dummy value before
>>> you know the proper initial value, you will not catch a to-early read
>>> of the local.  This problem is not at all solved in Forth-2012.
>>
>>And in what way will an initialized local catch a too-early read of a
>>local?  (I'm assuming we're not talking about multiple locals blocks,
>>but the single one that we have.)
> 
> It was you who claimed that initialized locals solve the problem that
> arises from the restriction to one locals definition that you want to
> uphold.

It does.  It's a way of declaring locals that may be defined later.
That's the problem it solves.  But that's nothing to do with a
too-early read of a local.

> I pointed out that it did not.  So you have to answer your question
> yourself.

I no longer have any idea what you are talking about.

>>> Anyway, if you think that the existance of initialized locals solves
>>> the problem, what problem is solved by uninitialized locals?
>>
>>I think it's for compatibility with existing usage, isn't it?  Because
>>there is only one locals block in a word, you have to declare them all
>>at the top, and you don't have initial values for them yet.
> 
> It's a solution to a problem that we created ourselves with this
> restriction (actually, the Forth-94 TC created it, we just upheld
> it).

Yes.

> Better get rid of the restriction and therefore the problem, then we
> don't need that solution.

I don't think so.  Look at this:

: strcmp {: addr1 u1 addr2 u2 -- n :}
 addr1 addr2
 u1 u2 min 0
 ?do {: s1 s2 :}
   s1 c@ s2 c@ -
   ?dup-if
     unloop exit
   then
   s1 char+ s2 char+
 loop
 2drop
 u1 u2 - ;

It is obvious to anyone skilled in the art that this word needs to be
refactored, and with that refactoring the need for the inner locals
declaration goes away.

Given a word -STR ( a1 a2 u), which does the inner comparison, this
becomes:

: @pair ( a1 a2 - a1 a2 c1 c2)   over c@ over c@ ;
: step ( a1 a2 - a1' a2')   swap 1+ swap 1+ ;

: -str ( a1 a2 u - n)
   0 do
      @pair -  ?dup if  unloop exit  then
      step
   loop
   2drop 0 ;

: strcmp {: addr1 u1 addr2 u2 -- n :}
   addr1 addr2
   u1 u2 min
   -str ?dup if  exit  then
   u1 u2 - ;

And with a bit more work the need for any locals goes away altogether.

(Untested, and probably buggy.  But you get the idea.)

The question in my mind is whether there is ever a word not in need of
refactoring which needs multiple locals declarations.

Andrew.

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Thread

Re: Why smudge? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-09-30 19:25 -0700
  Re: Why smudge? november.nihal@gmail.com - 2014-10-01 08:54 -0700
    Re: Why smudge? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-10-01 19:09 +0000
  Re: Why smudge? november.nihal@gmail.com - 2014-10-01 10:16 -0700
    Re: Why smudge? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-01 18:54 -0700
  Re: Why smudge? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-02 15:31 -0700
    Re: Why smudge? Michael Barry <barrym95838@yahoo.com> - 2014-10-02 16:35 -0700
      Re: Why smudge? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-02 17:02 -0700
        Re: Why smudge? Michael Barry <barrym95838@yahoo.com> - 2014-10-02 17:51 -0700
          Re: Why smudge? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-02 18:50 -0700
        Re: Why smudge? Gerry Jackson <gerry@jackson9000.fsnet.co.uk> - 2014-10-04 00:30 +0100
          Re: Why smudge? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-03 17:40 -0700
            Re: Why smudge? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2014-10-03 23:00 -0700
              Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-04 21:14 -0700
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-05 03:42 -0500
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! Enoch <emc.consultants@gmail.com> - 2014-10-05 10:43 -0700
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-05 20:21 -0700
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-06 03:58 -0500
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-05 17:09 -0700
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! Michael Barry <barrym95838@yahoo.com> - 2014-10-06 11:15 -0700
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-06 18:52 -0700
                More ranting Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-07 03:48 -0500
                Re: More ranting albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-10-07 12:43 +0000
                Re: More ranting Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-10-07 16:23 +0200
                Re: More ranting "Rod Pemberton" <buzzoff@nonamewhichexists.cmm> - 2014-10-16 01:03 -0400
                Re: More ranting Just Ian <superian@gmail.com> - 2014-10-16 07:14 -0700
                Re: More ranting Michael Barry <barrym95838@yahoo.com> - 2014-10-16 13:23 -0700
                uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals (was: More ranting) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-07 15:36 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals (was: More ranting) Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-10-07 22:15 +0200
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals (was: More ranting) mhx@iae.nl - 2014-10-07 15:07 -0700
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals (was: More ranting) Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-10-08 03:11 +0200
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals (was: More ranting) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-08 13:25 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals (was: More ranting) hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-09 16:22 -0700
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals (was: More ranting) "Rod Pemberton" <buzzoff@nonamewhichexists.cmm> - 2014-10-17 21:58 -0400
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals (was: More ranting) mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2014-10-12 11:18 +0200
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals (was: More ranting) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-08 12:35 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-07 15:27 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-08 12:56 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-08 08:24 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-08 15:32 +0000
                Simplified automatic scoping (was: uninitialized ...) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-08 16:06 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-08 11:57 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-08 12:18 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-09 14:19 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-09 14:42 -0700
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-09 14:07 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-09 10:44 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-10 16:03 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-10 13:35 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-11 10:53 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-12 11:34 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-15 12:44 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-10-15 14:34 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-15 15:03 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-15 11:10 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-16 12:19 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-17 03:56 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2014-10-17 07:48 -1000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-17 19:26 -0700
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-18 12:55 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-18 13:21 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2014-10-18 08:44 -1000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-10-19 09:53 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-10-20 12:48 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals "Rod Pemberton" <buzzoff@nonamewhichexists.cmm> - 2014-10-20 16:24 -0400
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2014-10-20 10:30 -1000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-20 16:23 -0700
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-26 04:16 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2014-10-26 11:32 +0200
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2014-10-26 14:27 +0000
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-26 13:56 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2014-10-26 20:32 +0200
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-26 16:18 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-26 15:05 -0700
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-26 17:53 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-26 16:30 -0700
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals "Rod Pemberton" <buzzoff@nonamewhichexists.cmm> - 2014-10-27 01:45 -0400
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-27 12:21 -0500
                Re: uninitialized and implicitly initialized locals Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-10-26 17:57 -0500
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! Gerry Jackson <gerry@jackson9000.fsnet.co.uk> - 2014-10-06 20:55 +0100
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-06 16:05 -0700
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! Gerry Jackson <gerry@jackson9000.fsnet.co.uk> - 2014-10-09 07:36 +0100
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2014-10-10 01:52 +0000
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-09 19:56 -0700
                Re: Pelc's effort to sabotage cross-compiler writing has a work-around now! "Rod Pemberton" <buzzoff@nonamewhichexists.cmm> - 2014-10-17 23:11 -0400
            Re: Why smudge? Gerry Jackson <gerry@jackson9000.fsnet.co.uk> - 2014-10-05 11:05 +0100
              Re: Why smudge? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-05 19:48 -0700
                Re: Why smudge? Gerry Jackson <gerry@jackson9000.fsnet.co.uk> - 2014-10-06 07:53 +0100
                Re: Why smudge? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2014-10-05 21:29 -1000
              Re: Why smudge? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-10-09 15:16 -0700
              Re: Why smudge? "Rod Pemberton" <buzzoff@nonamewhichexists.cmm> - 2014-10-16 01:03 -0400

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