[erlang-bugs] Document of lists:append/2

Bob Ippolito bob@REDACTED
Mon Feb 10 05:43:58 CET 2014


If you assume that all functions have undefined behavior when given
incorrectly typed inputs, it's perfectly consistent. Erlang code tends to
assume correctly typed input because it's simpler to implement and the
types can often be checked mechanically with tools such as dialyzer.

On Sunday, February 9, 2014, Yoshihiro Tanaka <hirotnkg@REDACTED> wrote:

> Right. I guess I'm questioning the accuracy of the document.
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 7:52 PM, Siraaj Khandkar <siraaj@REDACTED<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','siraaj@REDACTED');>
> > wrote:
>
>> This is just a surprising side effect of dynamic typing. To perform the
>> append, the left list is traversed and the right is just blindly used as
>> a tail, so it is never introspected and thus never has an opportunity to
>> crash.
>>
>>
>> On 2/9/14, 10:30 PM, Yoshihiro Tanaka wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > In the document :http://www.erlang.org/doc/man/lists.html#append-2
>> > It says:
>> > append(List1, List2) -> List3, List1 = List2 = List3 = [T], T = term.
>> >
>> > But considering the following behavior, it does not look correct:
>> >
>> > 1> [] ++ undef.
>> > undef
>> > 2> undef ++ [].
>> > ** exception error: bad argument
>> >      in operator  ++/2
>> >         called as undef ++ []
>> > 3> [a,b] ++ undef.
>> > [a,b|undef]
>> > 4>
>> >
>> >
>> > Thoughts ?
>> >
>> >
>> > Thank you
>> > Yoshihiro
>>
>
>
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