Re: Argument Lists

[shebs%utah-orion@utah-cs.arpa (Stanley Shebs)]

In article <FAHLMAN.12217236274.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU> Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU (Scott E. Fahlman) writes:
>
>    It is not required that an
>    implementation signal an error when there are either too many or too few
>    arguments...
>
>I would have sworn that implementaitosn were required to signal an error
>in this case, but a scan of CLtL seems to indicate that you are right.
>The section on argument lists consistently says "is an error" and not
>"signals an error".  I can't remember (or imagine) why these cases
>aren't required to signal an error, and I think this should be fixed.

I thought the reason was that implementations shouldn't be required to
do *any* checking as a part of function-calling protocol, since it would
slow things down on stock hardware.

>Does anyone disagree?

It's fine as it stands.  Error checking should be optional, except in the
most infrequent or potentially catastrophic situations (i.e. package system).

>Are there any implementations out there that
>don't signal errors when a function is given too many or too few args?

PCLS is pretty sleazy most of the time... people seem to like it that way :-)

>-- Scott

								stan