On Sun, 23 Oct 2022 18:54:43 +0200, Erich Steinböck wrote: >> So "constant expression" here should really just be "constant symbol." >.true, .nil, etc. are environment symbols.
I was avoiding that distinction because the doc doesn't specifically say that environment symbols are *not* constant symbols. Their values may change, but in terms of syntax they're constant in the sense that they can't be used in variable assignments, and SYMBOL() returns 'LIT' for them, the same as for other constant symbols. I need to update my old statement about incompatibilties between Classic and Object Rexx. Long ago I wrote that assignment of a stem object was the only substantial one. Somehow I completely overlooked the initial values of environment symbols! If your code depends on knowing the value of a symbol starting with a dot or evaluating it with VALUE(), it'll run into trouble with the names of any of the various classes, runtime objects, and environment constants--and any environment symbols its caller has assigned. A surprising quirk there is that nothing prevents you from assigning a symbol that's a number: /* caller */ .local~1 = 2 Say pointone() /* returns 2 */ /* pointone */ Return .1 ¬R _______________________________________________ Oorexx-users mailing list Oorexx-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/oorexx-users
