April 10 2014 Meeting Notes

[Allen Wirfs-Brock]

On Apr 24, 2014, at 1:29 PM, Brendan Eich wrote:

> Sorry for the confusion -- my "such a change" was about changing @@iterator itself, e.g. not defining it on a generator, or trying somehow to guarantee freshness.
> 
> I agree, return automation makes sense for any delimited form that implicitly calls @@iterator.
> 
> There still may be an open issue, though: Python has ref-counting and pre-mortem finalization via close, last I checked. JS won't have any such thing. So are there ,in ES6, undelimited forms that implicitly call @@iterator and that won't implicitly maybe-call return?
> 

I don't think so, although I need to do an inspection (which will be required anyway to actually update the spec.). As far as I can recall, all uses of @iterator in the spec. are in loop that intend to run to completion.  It is only  potential abnormal completion sites between 'next' calls (of which there can be plenty of as any MOP level operation can throw)  that need to be dealt with.  For example, here is the relevant loop from Array.from:


(the following is actually starts at step 6 in the spec.)
	• 1.	Let usingIterator be CheckIterable(items).
	• 2.	ReturnIfAbrupt(usingIterator).
	• 3.	If usingIterator is not undefined, then
		• a.	If IsConstructor(C) is true, then
			• i.	Let A be the result of calling the [[Construct]] internal method of C with an empty argument list.
		• b.	Else,
			• i.	Let A be ArrayCreate(0).
		• c.	ReturnIfAbrupt(A).
		• d.	Let iterator be GetIterator(items, usingIterator).
		• e.	ReturnIfAbrupt(iterator).
		• f.	Let k be 0.
		• g.	Repeat
			• i.	Let Pk be ToString(k).
			• ii.	Let next be IteratorStep(iterator).
			• iii.	ReturnIfAbrupt(next).
			• iv.	If next is false, then 
				• 1.	Let putStatus be Put(A, "length", k, true).
				• 2.	ReturnIfAbrupt(putStatus).
				• 3.	Return A.
			• v.	Let nextValue be IteratorValue(next).
			• vi.	ReturnIfAbrupt(nextValue).
			• vii.	If mapping is true, then
				• 1.	Let mappedValue be the result of calling the [[Call]] internal method of mapfn with T as thisArgument and (nextValue, k) as argumentsList.
				• 2.	ReturnIfAbrupt(mappedValue).
			• viii.	Else, let mappedValue be nextValue.
			• ix.	Let defineStatus be CreateDataPropertyOrThrow(A, Pk, mappedValue).
			• x.	ReturnIfAbrupt(defineStatus).
			• xi.	Increase k by 1.

@@iterator isn't call until step 3d. Steps 3.g.iii, 3.g.vi, 3.g.vii.2, and 3.g.x are all possible abnormal loop exit points that should call @@return if needed.

Allen