what -I- consider a bug in *cabe

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 09:42:45PM -0400, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> > ::declare longvar;longvar="abcde":
> > ::lookup test = demo k=longvar i=a -nx:
> 
> This _is_ a syntax error.  What follows "k=" must either be a field,
> or an expression contained within parentheses.  The variable "longvar"
> is not a "field".

The argument of k= *is* permitted to be a short-named nummy variable;
could you expand on how long-named dummy variables are semantically
different in the parser?

> > I would personally say that's a lot less of a typo than what I had
> > with my mid() statement.  And if you just use "aa" without using it
> > elsewhere, it complains because it doesn't exist anywhere, which
> > makes sense.  If you use "aa" and it is used elsewhere, it passes.
> 
> That's because "aa", while a valid field name, does not exist unless
> it has been declared (either explicitly or implicitly) elsewhere.
> 
> > But since I've declared "longvar", why should I get that error
> > unless putting parens around it?
> 
> Because "longvar" is not a field, and expressions in this context
> require parentheses around them.

"aa" is not, in fact, a field.  It's a dummy variable.

No?

> > It's convoluted stuff like that where it's obviously going to some
> > lengths to check against something obscure that makes me go, "If it
> > will check for something that arcane there, why won't it check for
> > a simple numeric value as a sole string literal if it detects that's
> > all that was there?"
> 
> As stated elsewhere, a string which contains a value which doesn't
> make sense in context is not a "syntax error", as long as a string
> is valid syntax in that context.

This is the point I was making in my earlier post.

> > ***PEBKAC***
> 
> The problem is that such a message would appear so often that it
> would become the new BSOD.  :-)

Haw.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
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