For Loop Desugaring (was: return when desugaring to closures)

Tue Oct 14 12:39:51 PDT 2008

Jon Zeppieri wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 10:48 PM, Mark S. Miller <erights at google.com> wrote:
>> You're right. However, the desugaring is more complex than I expected.
>> Thanks for asking me to write it down.
>>
>>  for (<keyword> <varName> = <initExpr>; <testExpr>; <updateExpr>) { <body> }
>>
>> desugars to (hygienic  renaming aside):
>>
>> breakTarget: {
>>  const loop = lambda(iter = <initExpr>) {
>>    <keyword> <varName> = iter;
>>    if (! <testExpr>) { break breakTarget; }
>>    continueTarget: { <body> }
>>    lambda(iter2 = <varName>) {
>>      <keyword> <varName> = iter2;
>>      <updateExpr>;
>>      loop(<varName>);
>>    }();
>>  };
>>  loop();
>> }
>>
>> I believe this meets all your requirements.
> 
> I believe it does.  Very cool.  It won't handle the fully general
> for(;;).  E.g.,
> 
> for (let fn = lambda(n) { ... fn(...) ... }; <testExpr>; <updateExpr>) ...

Yeah, that's a problem with the current formulation.

> I also find it odd that
> 
> {
>     let x = 0;
>     for (; x < n; x++) ...
> }
> 
> should have different behavior than
> 
> for (let x = 0; x < n; x++) ...

I do too.

Another issue with the rewrite is that it interacts badly with getters and setters on the iteration variable.

    Waldemar

PS.  What does lambda(x = y){...}() mean?  Is it different from lambda(x){...}(y)?  What does lambda(x = y){...}(z) do when z is undefined?