apply on dotted argument lists

Hi Sam,

Moving the discussion from the bug tracker
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=101355&aid=3517196&group_id=1355
to the list.

I wrote:
> Confirmed:
> 
> > (defun something (a b &rest pieces) (type-of pieces))
> > (apply #'something 5 6 (append NIL "X"))
> NULL
> > (compile 'something)
> SOMETHING ;
> 2 ;
> NIL
> > (apply #'something 5 6 (append NIL "X"))
> (SIMPLE-BASE-STRING 1)
> 
> SBCL yields an error in this situation.
> 
> In CLHS
> http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/CommonLISP/HyperSpec/Body/glo_f.html#function
> a function is supposed to be "called with zero or more arguments". A dotted
> argument list is not foreseen.
> 
> Also, in
> http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/CommonLISP/HyperSpec/Body/fun_apply.html#apply
> the arguments list is defined to be a "spreadable argument list
> designator", "whose last element is a list L2 of length m". This does not
> allow a dotted list.
> 
> See also CLHS
> http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/CommonLISP/HyperSpec/Body/sec_3-4-1-3.html
> "The value of a rest parameter is permitted, but not required, to share
> structure with the last argument to apply."
> 
> From a user's perspective, I think it would be good if clisp would be
> changed to emit an error in this case as well, in interpreted mode only.
> In compiled mode, which is not designed to do maximum error checking, I
> would not change anything.

You replied:
> 1. I don't think you can separate compiled from interpreted here: both are
> done by apply_closure

The compiled closure is handled in the first part of apply_closure, the
interpreted one in the last 20 lines of apply_closure. This one-liner
should produce an error in the interpreted case:

--- eval.d	2011-08-02 00:53:00.000000000 +0200
+++ eval.d.mod	2012-04-13 02:29:07.000000000 +0200
@@ -4827,6 +4827,7 @@
       if (((uintL)~(uintL)0 > ca_limit_1) && (args_on_stack > ca_limit_1))
         goto error_toomany;
     }
+    if (!nullp(args)) goto error_dotted;
     var gcv_object_t* args_pointer = args_end_pointer STACKop args_on_stack;
     with_saved_back_trace_iclosure(closure,args_pointer,args_on_stack,
       funcall_iclosure(closure,args_pointer,args_on_stack); );


> 2. I don't think adding an explicit list check to the evaluator makes much
> sense.

Why? I think it does: Any useful error message that occurs while a user
is testing his program in interpreted mode is useful.

> 3. Bruno, why do you have error_apply_dotted signal a program-error and
> error_apply_toofew signal an argument-list-dotted error? these look weird:
> 
> > (apply #'cons 1)
> *** - APPLY: dotted argument list given to CONS : 1
> > (apply #'read-from-string "a" 2)
> *** - APPLY: argument list given to READ-FROM-STRING is dotted (terminated
> by 2)
> 
> I think the messages (and errors) should be identical.

I agree that the messages are unnecessarily different.

About the error types: Since PROGRAM-ERROR is defined as errors relating
to "program syntax"
<http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/CommonLISP/HyperSpec/Body/contyp_program-error.html>
but here we don't have a wrong program (that could be caught at
compile-time), just wrong data (at runtime), I think that PROGRAM-ERROR
is wrong here, in both cases.

But in the first case, CLHS section 3.5.1.2
<http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/CommonLISP/HyperSpec/Body/sec_3-5-1-2.html>
forces us to signal a PROGRAM-ERROR (or subtype thereof), even though
it's nonsense.

In the second case, CLHS does not specify which error is signaled
(see <http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/CommonLISP/HyperSpec/Body/fun_apply.html#apply>:
"Exceptional Situations: None."). Why should we repeat the same nonsense here?

Bruno


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