"Jean-Pierre Rosen" wrote in message news:p6fi8e.de4.ln@hunter.axlog.fr... > Randy Brukardt a �crit : > > > > I can say that the notion that something declared "constant" could in fact > > be assigned to in some scope is rather disgusting. I don't think it would > > fly. > > > Hmmm.... Initialization of controlled constants? After initialization, of course. (Constants are assign-once, logically. Assign-never would be a problem, because they'd have no value at all in that case!) And similarly, before finalization (although it shouldn't really be necessary to clear the finalized result -- but it is often done, and harmless to do). Still, allowing the assignment of a name that is declared to be a constant view at some point between initialization and finalization would be a nasty change to the language. (Note that it might be possible to assign via a different name; that's a different issue -- and one that is usually a programming error.) Otherwise, "constant" would essentially be meaningless -- bringing us back to the beginning; if it doesn't mean anything, why bother with it at all? Randy.