Re: Spell-checking source code (Was: ISO Studies of underscores...)

["Jakob Bieling" <netsurf@gmy.net>]

"Leif Roar Moldskred" <rmoldskr@online.no> wrote in message
news:86r81s6elg.fsf@huldreheim.huldreskog.no...
> "Jakob Bieling" <netsurf@gmy.net> writes:
>
> >     But it is that kind of word-matching I would personally like to see
in
> > more compilers (specifically C++ compilers).
> >
> >     I do agree with Kevin Morenski (news:3f7df3af_2@nntp2.nac.net) that
a
> > real spell-checker for source code is not practicable. You said that the
> > spell-checker would just have to ask you whether to ignore it or how
else to
> > proceed. Have you thought about how annoying 100s or even 1000s of those
> > messages boxes, asking how to proceed, will be when compiling already
> > existing source with this spell-checker?
>
> Oh, I wouldn't want it to be part of the compiler, or continiously on.
Rather,
> I'd just want to be able to run a command in my editor to spell-check the
> source-code I'm currently working on - much like I today invoke ispell in
> emacs for regular text files.


    Ah, I did not consider this difference even. *g*  My point was, checking
my own identifier names for spelling errors based on natural language rules
is a bad idea. Instead, a special code-spell-checker would be great:

    a/ 'Created' identifiers are automatically added to the list of known
words (for the current compilation run only)
    b/ When an identifier is used, but not found, the spell-checker tries to
find out what I meant (like any spell-checker)
    c/ Comments are spell-checked like in any other word processor, except
that identifier names should also be considered

    So let us assume we have this (rather useless) piece of C++ code:

1 int main ()
2 {
3     char* pRok = new char;
4     *pork = 'p';
5     delete pRok;    //  do not forget t delete pRok!
6 }

    In line 3, the spell-checker should not question the identifier name and
try to tell me that I meant 'pork' (see a/ above). Instead, it should tell
me in line 4 that I most probably meant 'pRok' and not 'pork' (see b/
above). And last but not least, in line 5, the spell-checker should point
out the missing 'o' (ie. ".. forget to ..") but leave 'pRok' undiagnosed.

regards
--
jb

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