[Openmcl-devel] Compiler warnings

[Tobias C. Rittweiler]

Daniel Weinreb <dlw at itasoftware.com> writes:

> Ron Garret wrote:
> >
> > Yes, but it is defensible behavior in light of what the spec says, 
> > namely (section 3.1.2.1.1):
> >
> > "If a form is a symbol, then it is either a symbol macro or a variable."
> >
> > and
> >
> > "If a form is a symbol that is not a symbol macro, then it is the name 
> > of a variable, .... There are three kinds of variables: lexical 
> > variables, dynamic variables, and constant variables."
> >
> > Since a "naked" symbol that is not bound and has not been DEF...ed is 
> > clearly not a lexical variable nor a constant variable, one could 
> > reasonably conclude that it must be a dynamic variable.
>
> I agree with all of this.  The only thing that (setq a 4)
> at top level can possibly mean, if it's not considered
> to be illegal, is to treat the symbol a as a dynamic variable.
>
> But for it to automatically create a declaration, which will
> cause future uses of that symbol to be treated as
> dynamic variables even when inside a lexical scope
> that defines a variable named by that symbol, is
> a different thing, and isn't necessarily implied by
> the spec.  So I don't agree that the CMUCL behavior
> is the only reasonable thing to do.

Uhm, if you agree with Ron's argumentation, but do not want the
automatic special proclamation, this would mean that

  * (setf x 42)
  42

  * x

must signal an unbound variable error because it'd try to look up a
lexical variable X which is not there.

Of course,

  * (locally (declare (special x)) x)
  42

would work.

  -T.