An over enthusiastic warning ?

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

Roger Price <rprice@REDACTED> wrote:
	The following code was produced by a compiler [1] which replaced unused 
	variables U4 and U5 by wildcards,
	
	  fun ([_U4|_U5]) ->
	      fun ([_U4|_U5]) ->        %% Warnings for wildcards _U4 and _U5
	          fun ([U4|U5]) ->
	              fun ([U6|U7]) -> {'C',U1,U4,U5,U6,U7}
	              end(U3)
	          end(U2)
	      end(U3)
	  end(U2)
	
Wrong.  "_" is a wild-card, NOTHING ELSE is a wild-card.

	but the Erlang (BEAM) emulator version 5.4.9 [source] [hipe] with Eshell 
	V5.4.9 issued warnings:
	
	./test0.erl:25: Warning: variable '_U4' shadowed in 'fun'
	./test0.erl:25: Warning: variable '_U5' shadowed in 'fun'
	
Erlang is helpful indeed to warn about this.

If you want wild-cards, generate

	  fun ([_|_]) ->
	      fun ([_|_]) ->
	          fun ([U4|U5]) ->
	              fun ([U6|U7]) -> {'C',U1,U4,U5,U6,U7}
	              end(U3)
	          end(U2)
	      end(U3)
	  end(U2)
	
Better yet, notice that "is U2 a pair" is being checked twice
and "is U3 a list" is being checked twice, and generate

	fun([U4|U5]) -> fun ([U6|U7]) -> {'C',U1,U4,U5,U6,U7} end(U3) end(U2)