[julia-users] `for i in ${SCALAR}`

[Pontus Stenetorp]

Everyone,

I am sure that there is a perfectly good reason for the parser to
allow a construct like:

    for i in 17; println(i); end

But, I am unable to see how this can be useful/helpful since a loop
like this will only ever execute once.  I have now had two bugs
stemming from this behaviour, for both cases `17` was replaced with a
function call.  What I intended to write was something like the
following:

    for i in 1:17; println(i); end

Thus, I thought it was a good idea to ask about this, according to me,
little peculiarity, so that I can determine whether I am introducing
bugs/rambling on due to my own ignorance, or if this is indeed
something that should be fixed.  For those interested and familiar
with the Julia introspection, here is the dump of the expression:

    julia> dump(:(for i in 17; println(i); end))
    Expr
      head: Symbol for
      args: Array(Any,(2,))
        1: Expr
          head: Symbol =
          args: Array(Any,(2,))
            1: Symbol i
            2: Int64 17
          typ: Any
        2: Expr
          head: Symbol block
          args: Array(Any,(2,))
            1: LineNumberNode
              line: Int64 1
            2: Expr
              head: Symbol call
              args: Array(Any,(2,))
              typ: Any
          typ: Any
      typ: Any

For reference, I am running a fairly recent master version of Julia
(master/8f1fbec*).

    Pontus