From: fjh@mundook.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson)
Subject: Re: Uninitialized "out" parameters
Date: 1996/07/21
Date: 1996-07-21T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <4stagp$3vg@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> (raw)
In-Reply-To: dewar.837899732@schonberg
dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>Fergus said
>
>"No, certainly it is possible. There are languages in which any code
>that might attempt to use an uninitialized variable is a compile-time
>error. It would certainly be possible for an Ada compiler to give
>warnings in all cases where a variable might be used before it was
>initialized."
>
>Well it depends what you mean. If we read what you say literally, it is
>obviously incorrect, since it requires the halting problem to be solved:
No, if you read it literally, it's correct -- but you're not reading it
literally, you're reading into it more than what I wrote.
>If you don't mind getting bogus warnings, i.e. warnings that might be
>false, then your statement is trivially true,
Yes. I never said anything about not getting some spurious warnings
(or spurious errors).
Presuming the spurious warnings/errors don't occur often, and so long
as there are easy work-arounds when they do occur, I don't think that
would be a major problem. Certainly programmers have demonstrated
a willingness to accept that sort of thing in other aspect of
programming languages (e.g. type systems).
> procedure x is
> m,n : integer;
> begin
> (big chunk of code not referencing m,n)
> m := n;
> end;
>
>this code references the uninitialized variable n if and only if the big
>chunk of code halts. That's an easy proof.
Similarly, in a dynamically typed Ada-like language, the code
procedure x is
m : integer;
n : some_other_type;
begin
(big chunk of code)
m := n;
end;
causes a run-time type error if and only if the big chunk of code halts.
Of course, Ada uses static type checking, rather than dynamic typing;
they report some "spurious" type errors such as for the example above.
There's no reason why Ada compilers couldn't do the analagous sort of
thing for uninitialized variables.
--
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au> | "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh> | of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3 | -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1996-07-21 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 104+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1996-07-18 0:00 Uninitialized "out" parameters Paul Whittington
1996-07-18 0:00 ` Adam Beneschan
1996-07-18 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-19 0:00 ` Samuel Tardieu
1996-07-19 0:00 ` John Herro
1996-07-19 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Peter Hermann
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-19 0:00 ` Dale Stanbrough
1996-07-19 0:00 ` Adam Beneschan
1996-07-19 0:00 ` James A. Squire
1996-07-19 0:00 ` Adam Beneschan
1996-07-20 0:00 ` Michael Feldman
1996-07-21 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-21 0:00 ` Michael Feldman
1996-07-21 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-22 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Michael Feldman
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-19 0:00 ` Pascal Obry
1996-07-19 0:00 ` Peter Hermann
1996-07-18 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-19 0:00 ` Peter Amey
1996-07-20 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-20 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-21 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson [this message]
1996-07-21 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Theodore E. Dennison
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Frank Manning
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-07-26 0:00 ` Frank Manning
1996-07-19 0:00 ` Michel Gauthier
1996-07-21 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-19 0:00 ` Peter Amey
1996-07-21 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-22 0:00 ` Is 'out' different from 'in out' (Was: Uninitialized "out" parameters) Michel Gauthier
1996-07-22 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1996-07-22 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-22 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Uninitialized "out" parameters John Herro
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Uninitialized variables, Java example Arra Avakian
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Uninitialized "out" parameters Robert Dewar
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Peter Hermann
1996-07-26 0:00 ` Stephen J Bevan
1996-07-26 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Is 'out' different from 'in out' (Was: Uninitialized "out" parameters) Michel Gauthier
1996-07-23 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Pascal Obry
1996-07-25 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1996-07-24 0:00 ` Uninitialized variables, Java example Felaco
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1996-07-29 0:00 Uninitialized out parameters W. Wesley Groleau (Wes)
2016-04-05 12:02 ahlan
2016-04-05 13:17 ` rieachus
2016-04-05 14:07 ` ahlan
2016-04-06 9:45 ` Mark Lorenzen
2016-04-06 21:01 ` Jeffrey R. Carter
2016-04-07 7:10 ` ahlan
2016-04-05 16:19 ` G.B.
2016-04-06 8:19 ` ahlan
2016-04-06 10:17 ` G.B.
2016-04-06 11:44 ` Dennis Lee Bieber
2016-04-06 20:41 ` Niklas Holsti
2016-04-06 20:54 ` Randy Brukardt
2016-04-06 20:47 ` Randy Brukardt
2016-04-06 21:01 ` Randy Brukardt
2016-04-06 21:22 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2016-04-07 7:27 ` Randy Brukardt
2016-04-06 11:37 ` AdaMagica
2016-04-06 13:44 ` ahlan
2016-04-06 14:09 ` Mark Lorenzen
2016-04-06 14:10 ` G.B.
2016-04-06 20:53 ` Stefan.Lucks
2016-04-06 21:03 ` Randy Brukardt
2016-04-06 21:12 ` Niklas Holsti
2016-04-06 21:30 ` Randy Brukardt
2016-04-07 9:56 ` Stefan.Lucks
2016-04-07 16:08 ` AdaMagica
2016-04-07 23:02 ` Randy Brukardt
2016-04-08 7:32 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2016-04-07 7:52 ` Georg Bauhaus
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