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digitalmars.D - Variable no-shadowing problems

reply "Chris Miller" <chris dprogramming.com> writes:
To those not sure what shadowing means, here is an example of variable  
shadowing:
    int i;
    {
       int i;
    }
The inner `i` variable shadows the outer one.


D has made such shadowing illegal and flags it as an error. I'm against  
this restriction, but I have a compromise.

I am proposing a `shadow` keyword be added to D. Actually, the general  
idea is from someone else from #D IRC chat, but I have several reasons why  
explained below.

1) Accidentally shadowing a variable. If this happens you will have to go  
back and manually fix up all uses of the shadowed name, which has a very  
high chance of error. Forget to fix one and it goes by silently; bug. Or,  
simply add `shadow` to its declaration, avoiding tedious, error-prone  
fixing, and make people aware of what's going on.

2) Adding code. You can simply add a { } block and declare at will. With  
no shadowing, I am tempted to append random numbers to my variable names  
so I don't run into this, or moreso tempted to reuse variable names like  
is popular from C, as in declare once at the top of the function and reuse  
the variable for different things.

3) Code generators emitting D source code. They may not wish to keep track  
of such shadowing and could simply mark all declarations as `shadow`.


Notes:

`shadow` does not allow redeclarations in the exact same scope (although  
perhaps it could).

As for reason (1), if you are personally against shadowing, you are not  
forced to use the keyword and can continue treating it how it is done now.

- Chris
Dec 22 2006
next sibling parent Gregor Richards <Richards codu.org> writes:
Chris Miller wrote:

 To those not sure what shadowing means, here is an example of variable  
 shadowing:
    int i;
    {
       int i;
    }
 The inner `i` variable shadows the outer one.
 
 
 D has made such shadowing illegal and flags it as an error. I'm against  
 this restriction, but I have a compromise.
 
 I am proposing a `shadow` keyword be added to D. Actually, the general  
 idea is from someone else from #D IRC chat, but I have several reasons 
 why  explained below.
 
 1) Accidentally shadowing a variable. If this happens you will have to 
 go  back and manually fix up all uses of the shadowed name, which has a 
 very  high chance of error. Forget to fix one and it goes by silently; 
 bug. Or,  simply add `shadow` to its declaration, avoiding tedious, 
 error-prone  fixing, and make people aware of what's going on.


I was going to respond to this somehow, but I don't think I really have 
a response ... IMHO this doesn't actually cut down the debugging time at 
all, since in all likelihood coder-X will have inadvertantly 
mixed-and-matched in the inner scope. Maybe that's not true, I don't know :)


 
 2) Adding code. You can simply add a { } block and declare at will. 
 With  no shadowing, I am tempted to append random numbers to my variable 
 names  so I don't run into this, or moreso tempted to reuse variable 
 names like  is popular from C, as in declare once at the top of the 
 function and reuse  the variable for different things.


I think this scenario could be more cleanly filed under "code reuse." If 
you copy/paste code from one project to another, with shadowing you 
don't have to worry (too much) about variable collision.


 
 3) Code generators emitting D source code. They may not wish to keep 
 track  of such shadowing and could simply mark all declarations as 
 `shadow`.


This I agree with entirely.


 
 
 Notes:
 
 `shadow` does not allow redeclarations in the exact same scope 
 (although  perhaps it could).


Redeclaration in the same scope ... hmmmmmm ... makes me gag a bit.


 
 As for reason (1), if you are personally against shadowing, you are not  
 forced to use the keyword and can continue treating it how it is done now.


Yeah, if you never plan on reading anybody else's code ;)


 
 - Chris


My opinion in short: I don't agree with 1, I somewhat agree with 2, I 
agree entirely with 3. You've covered the full gambit, bravo ;)

  - Gregor Richards
Dec 22 2006
prev sibling next sibling parent "Chris Miller" <chris dprogramming.com> writes:
For some reason the following post isn't showing up in my news reader,  =

http://www.digitalmars.com/pnews/read.php?server=3Dnews.digitalmars.com&=
group=3Ddigitalmars.D&artnum=3D45708
Dec 22 2006
prev sibling parent Xinok <xnknet gmail.com> writes:
It may not be the most desirable solution, but you could create a nested
function
to 'shadow' names.

int main(){
	int i;
	void func(){
		int i;
	}
	func();
}
Dec 22 2006