Re: Syntax error on function )COPY'd from another workspace

[Blake McBride]

Hello,

I have been watching this thread.  My impression is that it is not my code but a bug in GNU APL.  If it is my code, I am very happy to fix it.  I will take a look.

Thanks.

Blake

On Sun, Feb 9, 2025 at 9:08 AM Dr. Jürgen Sauermann <mail@jürgen-sauermann.de> wrote:

Hi Paul,

maybe Blake has an idea. For me it is very difficult to fix
workspaces that were contributed by other users. For the
author of the workspace fixing problems is far more easy.

Best Regards,
Jürgen

On 2/8/25 19:48, Paul Rockwell wrote:

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get this reproduced with anything simpler.  I can reliably reproduce this using Blake's APL Editor found here: https://github.com/blakemcbride/APLEditor

I don't believe it to be an error in the functions themselves. I can )LOAD the original workspace and "fix up" problematic functions that I know have thrown the syntax error in the past by simply opening and immediately closing the funcion (no other changes) with the ∇ editor. Things work fine after that. 

II )SAVE the workspace, and then )LOAD the saved copy, and the error re-appears. 

I've validated the variables in the offending statement each time the error appears. All appears normal - there's no syntax error apparent in the _expression_, so I have no idea why the interpreter is throwing an error. If the function/workspace had problems, to me it seems as a result of the )save,)load,)copy mechanisms. Only the ∇ editor gets me around the issue - ⎕FX ⎕CR 'function-name' does not. 

Any ideas on how I can help track this down?

- Paul

On Feb 8, 2025, at 11:34 AM, Dr. Jürgen Sauermann <mail@jürgen-sauermann.de> wrote:

Hi Paul,

that very much looks like an error in the Editor workspace, doesn't it?
Can you reproduce the fault in plain APL?

Best Regards,
Jürgen

On 2/6/25 19:14, Paul Rockwell wrote:

I've been seeing syntax errors being thrown on functions copied from another workspace. I've imported Blake McBride's APL editor from his GitHub site (linked to by the GNU APL Community pages). It seems to be reasonably up to date.

Once I have the workspace created containing the editor application, I )SAVE it. I then create a new workspace and )COPY the functions in the editor workspace into my current workspace. Then I attempt to use it to edit a function (an alternative to the ∇ editor).

What I see is that the copied editor function will fail with a syntax error on branch statements within the function:

      )copy Editor

SAVED 2025-01-19 15:03:52 (GMT-5)

      E∆Edit 'asd'

 

At all prompts you can type 'end' to exit or backup to the previous question.

You can often type 'help' to get help.

 

Enter the line numbers you wish to change, or [a,b,r]?  2

SYNTAX ERROR

E∆Piv[18]  →(0=⍴t)/0

           ^^

However, if you look at the variables involved, there should be nothing that should cause this syntax error

      t

2

      ⍴t

1

      0=⍴t

0

      0/0

      ⍴0/0

0

The strange thing about this is that if I open the offending function in the ∇ editor and save it (making no changes), the error goes away... at least for that function:

      )si

      ∇E∆Piv

[51] ∇

      E∆Edit 'asd'

 

At all prompts you can type 'end' to exit or backup to the previous question.

You can often type 'help' to get help.

 

Enter your edit command?  edit

Enter the line numbers you wish to change, or [a,b,r]?  2

24

Enter your edit command?  end

SYNTAX ERROR

E∆Edit[31]  →(2↑bv←qq E∆Pim 'Enter your edit command')/31 34

            ^^

      

As you can see, another function is exhibiting the same error. Like the E∆Piv function, opening the E∆Edit function seems to "fix"the issue.

What doesn't seem fix the issue is using ⎕CR and ⎕FX as an alternative to the ∇ editor.

      )reset

      ⎕FX ⎕CR 'E∆Edit'

E∆Edit

      E∆Edit 'asd'

 

At all prompts you can type 'end' to exit or backup to the previous question.

You can often type 'help' to get help.

 

Enter your edit command?  edit

Enter the line numbers you wish to change, or [a,b,r]?  2

24

Enter your edit command?  end

SYNTAX ERROR

E∆Edit[31]  →(2↑bv←qq E∆Pim 'Enter your edit command')/31 34

            ^^

As you can see, that didn't fix the problem. Now open E∆Edit with the ∇ editor and see what happens:

      )reset

      ∇E∆Edit 

[41] ∇

      E∆Edit 'asd'

 

At all prompts you can type 'end' to exit or backup to the previous question.

You can often type 'help' to get help.

 

Enter your edit command?  edit

Enter the line numbers you wish to change, or [a,b,r]?  2

24

Enter your edit command?  end

As I said, this is very strange behavior. I can work around it, but quite honestly it's a pain because I have no idea when the issue is going to crop up again.

- Paul Rockwell