Variable instances (Re: Trace on Variable assignment)

[Robert Virding]

Ulf Wiger <etxuwig@REDACTED> writes:
>On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, Ulf Wiger wrote:
>
>>X = foo(...),  % [0] is implicit
>>X[1] = bar(X),
>>...
>>
>>or perhaps 
>>
>>X = foo(...),  % \0 is implicit
>>X\1 = bar(X),
>>...
>>
>>
>>would allow trace on "changes" to a variable, and also introduce a
>>standard way of describing something that occurs frequently in
>>most Erlang code I've seen.
>>
>>/Uffe
>
>Since I posted this without thinking much, I paused and thought about
>it afterwards.
>
>One common source of bugs (and very hard to find) is when "changing" a
>variable and forgetting to pass the latest instance. An example from
>application_controller.erl:
>
>...
>
>a compiler could easily produce a warning stating that we're passing
>an old instance of S, since this is almost always a bug, and can
>easily be avoided in the cases when it it's intentional.

I ALWAYS try to explicit and name the first occurrence as XXX0 and last
occurrence as XXXn, and make sure I NEVER number variables which are not
changed.  Just to make it easier to see which variables are meant to be 
changed.

I think you should be very careful when adding a new syntax for 
something which is not a new feature.  These are still just variables.
Due to Erlang's (lack of) scoping there could be problems with such a 
scheme.  How hard should lint handle these things?  Is it an error to 
write?

	X[3] = foo(X[2]),
	X[10] = bar(X[3]),

If this is really something which people would like lint to check and 
warn I would prefer just to use the variable-name-ending-with-index 
convention.  Lint already checks for singeton variables if you ask it, 
just use the option 'warn_unused_vars'.  It is, however, a bit of a 
sledgehammer.  It ignores variables starting with "_", eg. _Temp.

	Robert

-- 
Robert Virding                          Tel: +46 (0)8 545 55 017
Alteon Web Systems                      Email: rv@REDACTED
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