Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing.

fjh@mundook.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson)
23 Feb 1997 22:37:33 -0500

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Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. iainf@bristol.st.com (1997-02-07)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. mff@research.att.com (Mary Fernandez) (1997-02-11)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. dennis@netcom.com (1997-02-16)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. kanze@gabi-soft.fr (1997-02-16)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. nr@adder.cs.virginia.edu (Norman Ramsey) (1997-02-20)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. cfc@world.std.com (1997-02-22)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. fjh@mundook.cs.mu.OZ.AU (1997-02-23)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. cartegw@humsci.auburn.edu (1997-02-27)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. kanze@gabi-soft.fr (1997-03-14)
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From: fjh@mundook.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 23 Feb 1997 22:37:33 -0500
Organization: Comp Sci, University of Melbourne
References: 97-01-258 97-02-081 97-02-090 97-02-107 97-02-127
Keywords: errors

>> Um, it may seem obvious, but it's not. The algorithm I described
>> ``taints'' everything that could possibly depend on the first
>> erroneous construct, and it refuses to issue error messages about
>> tainted things.


Depending on the lexical and syntactic structure of your language,
doing this 100% correctly this may be equivalent to the "taint
everything" approach.


Consider, for example, the following C file:


/* this is a silly example of how not to do it: */


blah() {
printf(42);
printf(43);
}


/* here ends our example */


The bug in that example is that the first line should not have
contained the `*/'. Since there's only one bug, there should be only
one error message, right? But I don't see how any tainting strategy
other than "taint everything" will avoid giving more than one error
message.


--
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>
PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3
--


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