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Topic: Care with compound assignment (Read 569 times) |
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Richard Russell
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Care with compound assignment
« Thread started on: Jul 18th, 2017, 9:24pm » |
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BBC BASIC supports compound assignment operators such as +=. It is usual to explain these by asserting that these operations are equivalent:
Code:
and
Code:
and they usually are, but there are exceptions. Consider the following program:
Code: x = 0 x += FNf PRINT x END DEF FNf x += 10 = 1
When run it prints 11. Now convert it as follows:
Code: x = 0 x = x + FNf PRINT x END DEF FNf x += 10 = 1
Now it prints 1. So in this case the compound assignment isn't equivalent to the expanded version! You should be able to work out why.
I have confirmed that these same results are obtained in Acorn's BASIC V, BBC BASIC for Windows and BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0.
My thanks are due to Raymond Chen who raised this issue in his Microsoft blog.
Richard.
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DDRM
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Re: Care with compound assignment
« Reply #1 on: Jul 19th, 2017, 08:20am » |
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Hi Richard,
Hmm, interesting! And this:
Code: x = 0 x = FNf+x PRINT x END DEF FNf x += 10 = 1
So in your second case, the x (which is still 0) is analysed before FNf changes it to 10, and then the result of FNf (i.e. 1) is added, and the sum (1) is assigned to x. In my version, the value of x has already been changed to 10 in the function before it is added.
So in the compound form the addition occurs last, and uses the value of x that is true at that time, rather than at the beginning of the statement?
If I understand Raymond Chen's blog correctly (quite likely not the case!) that suggests that BBC BASIC in it's various forms has right to left evaluation of these compound functions, unlike the C# he is talking about? Whether that's a good or a bad thing appears to be a moot point, but it's useful to be aware of it!
Is another take-home message that you should use local variables inside functions or be very careful about what you are doing? :-)
Best wishes,
D
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michael
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Re: Care with compound assignment
« Reply #2 on: Jul 19th, 2017, 08:40am » |
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this should fix the issue.
Code: x = 0 x = x + FNf PRINT x END DEF FNf x += 10 = 1+x
prints 11
OR to make it a bit more compact:
Code: x = 0 x = FNf x = FNf PRINT x END DEF FNf x += 10 = 1+x
Even with the issue, this is a fascinating way of using a FN if a person were to use global variables.
prints 22
Do I win?
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| « Last Edit: Jul 19th, 2017, 08:47am by michael » |
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I like reinventing the wheel, but for now I will work on tools for D3D
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Richard Russell
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Re: Care with compound assignment
« Reply #3 on: Jul 19th, 2017, 11:40am » |
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on Jul 19th, 2017, 08:40am, michael wrote:| this should fix the issue. |
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There's nothing to "fix" since BB4W and BBCSDL are working entirely correctly! I deliberately stated that Acorn's BASIC V worked the same way, as confirmation of that.
Quote:| Even with the issue, this is a fascinating way of using a FN if a person were to use global variables. |
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Of course one should ideally not modify global variables in a function, so the issue wouldn't arise if good practice was adhered to.
Richard.
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Richard Russell
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Re: Care with compound assignment
« Reply #4 on: Jul 19th, 2017, 11:57am » |
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on Jul 19th, 2017, 08:20am, DDRM wrote:| If I understand Raymond Chen's blog correctly (quite likely not the case!) that suggests that BBC BASIC in it's various forms has right to left evaluation of these compound functions |
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Erm, BBC BASIC is an interpreted language; 'right to left' evaluation would be difficult and messy to achieve! No, BBC BASIC evaluates left-to-right as do the vast majority of programming languages. Indeed wasn't Raymond's point that people expect that, even if only subconsciously, so whilst it might seem superficially 'wrong' changing it would cause far more confusion than it would solve.
BBC BASIC behaves exactly as you would expect it to, given left-to-right evaluation and a naïve understanding of how an interpreter works (because that's exactly how it does work!). The reason for my post wasn't to suggest that anything 'surprising' happens - it doesn't - but that the simplistic description of 'a += b' as being equivalent to 'a = a + b' isn't always correct.
Richard.
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Richard Russell
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Re: Care with compound assignment
« Reply #5 on: Jul 19th, 2017, 4:59pm » |
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on Jul 19th, 2017, 11:57am, Richard Russell wrote:| BBC BASIC behaves exactly as you would expect it to, given left-to-right evaluation |
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If anybody is unsure about that, here is a breakdown of exactly what happens internally in each case:
Code: *float 80 REM (1) x = x + FNf x = 0 address_of_x = ^x : REM Left hand side of assignment value_of_x = x x = x + 10 : REM Side-effect of FNf value_of_FNf = 1 |address_of_x = value_of_x + value_of_FNf PRINT x REM (2) x += FNf x = 0 address_of_x = ^x : REM Left hand side of assignment x = x + 10 : REM Side-effect of FNf value_of_FNf = 1 |address_of_x = |address_of_x + value_of_FNf PRINT x
Richard.
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