[erlang-bugs] Lists module funnies

[John Hughes]

What's the next element in this sequence?

1> lists:seq(1,3).
[1,2,3]
2> lists:seq(1,2).
[1,2]
3> lists:seq(1,1).
[1]
4> lists:seq(1,0).

I expect [], but what I get is:

=ERROR REPORT==== 10-Nov-2007::12:11:21 ===
Error in process <0.30.0> with exit value:
{function_clause,[{lists,seq,[1,0]},{
erl_eval,do_apply,5},{shell,exprs,6},{shell,eval_loop,3}]}

** exited: {function_clause,[{lists,seq,[1,0]},
                             {erl_eval,do_apply,5},
                             {shell,exprs,6},
                             {shell,eval_loop,3}]} **

I've worked around this more times than I can remember, special-casing the
zero case to avoid calling seq, and I'll bet that many callers of seq have
to do the same thing. Any chance of changing this in the future? There can't
be much code that would break... code that only works today *because* seq
raises an exception.

John Hughes