Re: Forward function declarations - relocal command

[Kevin Martin <kev82@...>]

On 18 Nov 2012, at 23:58, Rena wrote:

local f
local function g() print(f()) end
f = function() return 42 end

Yes, it's pretty trivial in cases like that, but my use case is a bit more complicated. That is actually what I have been doing, and what caught me out today, and prompted by to email was when I did this - admittedly without thinking:

local f

local function g()

--calls f

end

local f

local function h()

--also calls f

end

function f()

--does something

end

My thoughts were (roughly in order)

1) Get rid of the 'local f' above the definition of h

Problem - things would break if I ever moved h above g.

2) Creating all required forward declarations at the top of the block

Problem - No good if a function that doesn't require a forward declaration now, requires one later (in a couple of months when someone comes back to the code)

3) Create forward declarations for every function

Minor Problem - at the function definition, don't know whether it's a local function or not

Minor Problem - Have to modify two different code sites to create a function

4) Put all local functions in a local table

Minor Problem - Speed

Minor Problem - Many levels of nested scope would require well named tables

5) relocal command

Problem - Requires parser modification

I really don't like 1 and 2, especially as it may not be me coming back to the code. I didn't think there was much between 3 and 4, but I felt 4 was cleaner - which is what I've coded for now.