bug in docs or in ets:info/1?

[Gunilla Arendt]

Hi Sean,

I agree completely and -- unless there is a really really good argument 
against it -- we will fix the return value in R11B.

Best regards, Gunilla


Sean Hinde wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Presumably this decision was taken in the interests of backwards  
> compatibility.
> 
> It seems a shame to keep such a non intuitive/non erlang solution  when 
> even the documentation described a more sensible behaviour.
> 
> A better way forward might be to wait until the next major erlang  
> release, fix the bug, and place a short note in the backward  
> compatibility section of the release notes to say that this function  is 
> fixed and now produces what is documented.
> 
> Anyone updating to R11 will have to deal with other such issues and  it 
> does seem such a shame to keep broken behaviour with no potential  for a 
> fix.
> 
> Sean
> 
> 
> On 27 Jun 2005, at 12:55, Gunilla Arendt wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> The documentation for ets has now been updated, saying that  
>> ets:info/1 returns a tuple.
>>
>> Best regards, Gunilla
>>
>> Fredrik Thulin wrote:
>>
>>> Hi
>>> When googling for something unrelated, I stumbled upon an old post  
>>> of mine that I did not remember ever getting an answer for, and  the 
>>> problem (if it is a problem) is still there in R10B-5, so I  though 
>>> I'd bring it up again.
>>> It seems really odd to me that ets:info/1 returns a tuple  containing 
>>> tuples instead of a list of tuples, like the  documentation says it 
>>> should. Is this a bug in the documentation  or in the code?
>>> /Fredrik
>>> ----------  Forwarded Message  ----------
>>> Subject: bug in docs or in ets:info/1?
>>> Date: Tuesday 02 November 2004 07.35
>>> From: Fredrik Thulin <ft@REDACTED>
>>> To: erlang-questions@REDACTED
>>> Hi
>>> It seems to me that the documentation of ets:info/1 isn't in sync  with
>>> the code, or even more probably the other way around. The R10B-0
>>> documentation says that ets:info/1 returns a list of tuples, when  it is
>>> in fact returning a tuple containing a number of tuples. I think a  list
>>> of tuples would be more suitable.
>>> Eshell V5.4  (abort with ^G)
>>> 1> L = ets:info(inet_cache).
>>> {{memory,277},
>>> ...
>>>  {protection,public}}
>>> 2> is_list(L).
>>> false
>>> 3> is_tuple(L).
>>> true
>>> 4>
>>> Documentation :
>>>
>>>> info(Tab) -> [{Item,Value}] | undefined
>>>>
>>>> Types:
>>>>
>>>> Tab = tid() | atom()
>>>> Item, Value - see below
>>>>
>>>> Returns information about the table Tab as a list of {Item,Value}
>>>> tuples:
>>>>
>>> The fix in ets.erl seems pretty obvious, but maybe there are concerns
>>> with code that is expecting the current format?
>>> /Fredrik
>>> -------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> _____Gunilla Arendt______________________________________________
>> Erlang/OTP development
>> Gunilla.Arendt@REDACTED  +46-8-7275730  ecn 851 5730
>>
> 
>