Inconsistent behavior for proc value assignment

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I'm playing around with assigning proc values to variables but not sure what I'm doing wrong.

In the code below I get the following error:

test.icn:11: # "x" unclosed literal or missing operator

Seems my assignment to "foreach" doesn't work, whereas the one for "collect" does. I can't spot the difference.

procedure main()
    local x
    foreach := every
    collect := tab
    "123456abcde" ? { 
        x := collect(many(&digits)) 
        }
    write(x)

    foreach x := !"abcdefgh" do {
        write(x)
        }

    return
end

[Jafar]

foreach := every doesn't do what you think it does. "every" is a reserved word and can't be assigned litrally. What you get is the resulat of evluating the expression "every collect := tab". which will be asisnged to foreach. What you want to do is"

$define foreach every

at the top, that will give you the behavior you are aiming for.

[Brian Tiffin]

Anon,

every is not a procedure, it's a reserved word, so it'll need a different way of creating the alias

Preprocessor might do

::unicon
$define foreach every

procedure main()
    local x

    #foreach := every
    collect := tab

    "123456abcde" ? { 
        x := collect(many(&digits)) 
        }
    write(x)

    foreach x := !"abcdefgh" do {
        write(x)
        }

    return
end

but that is maybe not what you are aiming for?

An expression like write(type(foreach) with your orginal would show a null as foreach would be assigned the result of an empty every expression. (Or that form of every fails, and you end up with a new variable reference when you look at it?? need to run some experiments).

Plus, be careful redefining collect, it's already a builtin for the garbage collector. You can still get at the original with proc("collect", 0) though.

Edit: shouldn't leave reply windows open for too long; Hard working people like Jafar come by and make the info look redundant. ;-)

Cheers,
Brian