#10 should fail if variable defined later then used

[Artem Grinblat]

Currently it is possible to use an unitialized variable
in felix, which leads to SIGSEGV if that variable is a
C++ class.

The error is triggered like that:
if (instance.someMethod()) do
instance := SomeClass();
done;

Of course, it's an obvioud error, but when writing a
large programm, it is easy to move some code above the
definition by mistake.

Basically, the following code should not compile:

if (len s > 3) do
print s;
s := "12345\n";
done;

[Erick Tryzelaar]

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user_id=41692

Well that certainly doesn't look correct. I'll add that as a "code that should error
out" regression.

Also, Artem, are you on the felix-impl mailing list? I'd like to move this
discussion over there as it's easier for the other devs to comment on.

-e

[Artem Grinblat]

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> Also, Artem, are you on the felix-impl mailing list?
> I'd like to move this discussion over there
> as it's easier for the other devs to comment on.

From now on, i am subscribed to felix-impl.

[John Skaller]

Logged In: YES
user_id=5394

Yes, Felix allows uninitialised variables: this is not an
implementation bug, but a design problem.

The only way I know to fix it is data flow analysis, which
is on the todo list, but not implemented.

It may be possible to catch some cases with heuristics.

Note that the code:

if (len s > 3) do
print s;
s := "12345\n";
done;

will not segfault, because s is a string which is a mapped
to a C++ string which is constructable type, and will be
initialised with its default constructor.

OTOH pointers are to NULL, so a deref of an uninitialised
pointer will always cause a segfault (which is better than
NOT segfaulting .. :)