Re: Idea: numbered error messages

[skaller <skaller@...>]

On Tue, 2005-02-01 at 23:23, Andy Stark wrote:
> I have had an idea for a small and simple addition to Lua that I thought I
> would share with the list. I think Lua's error messages should each have a
> unique identifying number that is printed out along with the message. The
> messages should also be listed in the Lua manual in numerical order of
> their ID numbers. 

> - I think the Lua manual or man page says somewhere that "error messages
> are self explanatory". 

Hehe. Actually, the semantics of a programming language
are often best understood in terms of what is not allowed,
certainly I learned a lot of PL/1 by reading the manual
of errors. So this is probably a good idea to reinforce
the semantic specification. In fact I should do this
for my own language translator.

BTW: the 'translate to French' idea is nice but
often things are harder because messages aren't
just a phrase, but a polymorphic phrase -- one
with holes that get filled in. (EG "xxx is undefined
in function yyy"). Different languages might order
the insertions differently due to grammar differences :(

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John Skaller, mailto:skaller@users.sf.net
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