Re: buggy 4.0 program
- Posted by DerekParnell (admin) Dec 15, 2008
- 1520 views
Ok, I know now that it does not continue to parse the rest of the program. And my question is why? Why it can not collect the different errors in same manner as "referencing error" series?
Why not to collect all at all errors to EOF and then generate complete error message after single pass?
Because experience with many compilers that attempt this stratgey has shown that a syntax error can itself cause subsequent errors. If you fix the first error then the other errors are magically not there anymore, thus indicating that false or unnecessary error messages were displayed. So, nowadays with our much faster edit-parse cycles, it is more efficient to report on the first serious error and stop further parsing until that is fixed.
I have fond memories of compiling COBOL programs that will report pages and pages of errors because I mispelled "WORKING-STORAGE SECTION." or left out the "ID DIVISION".
Euphoria, both v3 and v4 are doing better by stopping on the first serious error.
