OpenEuphoria

Yet Another Enhancement Suggestion

• Posted by Derek Parnell <ddparnell at bigpond.com> Aug 28, 2001
• 403 views

Hi Robert,
please consider this idea for a later release.

Proposal:
    If the index variable in a FOR loop is 
    already declared, use that variable and
    allow it's value to be inspected when
    the loop ends. 

Reason:
    When a loop has prematurely exited, the
    program often needs to know where it was
    up to when this happened. Currently, we
    must either create extra variables to 
    detect this common requirement, or use
    a WHILE loop and do the indexing manually.

Examples:

Currently this doesn't work...

    for i = 1 to length(pFields) do
      if ... then
        exit
      end if
    end for
    if i > ...

because 'i' has no scope beyond the for-loop.

This also fails...
    integer i
    for i = 1 to length(pFields) do
       if ... then
         exit
       end if
    end for
    if i > ...

because 'i' is redeclared.

I would like to see the second example become legal usage. It would save a
lot of silly extra variables and generally simplify code. Also, it would not
break existing code because it is currently illegal usage.

Now we tend to do this...

    integer j
    j = 0
    for i = 1 to length(pFields) do
       if ... then
         j = i
         exit
       end if
    end for
    if j > ...

or do this...

    integer i
    i = 1
    while i <= length(pFields) do
       if ... then
         exit
       end if
       i += 1
    end while
    if i > ...

both are more error-prone than allowing access to the FOR loop's index
variable after the loop.

-----------
cheers,
Derek Parnell
Senior Design Engineer
Global Technology Australasia Ltd
dparnell at glotec.com.au

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