Evaluating opinions - FilePro Error Messages

Jay R. Ashworth jra at baylink.com
Sat Jun 5 15:32:02 PDT 2004


On Sat, Jun 05, 2004 at 11:27:45AM -0400, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> "Jay R. Ashworth" wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 04, 2004 at 07:39:32PM -0400, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> > > George Simon wrote:
> > > > But "not" cannot be used as an alias in a lookup because
> > > > If: not not
> > > >
> > > > *** A filePro Error Has Occurred ***
> > > >
> > > > Line Number: 4
> > > >
> > > > not not
> > > >       ^
> > > > Process contains a syntax error at position indicated.
> > >
> > > "not" is a perfectly valid label.  You just can't test its state.
> > 
> > I'm sorry, but: "ick!"
> 
> I didn't say it was something you would _want_ to use, just that you
> _could_ use it.  Just as you can use "return" as a label of a subroutine,
> and call it with "gosub return".

Ok, I'll expand.

The function of a line label 'return' is not negatively affected *as a
jump target*.  But to the extent that you use labels as things to test,
the sybmol table collision on 'not' *does* negatively impact
functionality.

Hence: 'ick'.

At least it throws a syntax error.  Suggestion: if you are erroring a
token, you probably ought to think about marking *the entire token*, so
it's clear it's a token-level error.

Cheers,
-- jra

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
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        "They had engineers in my day, too."  -- Perry Vance Nelson


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