Re-using my variables in Erlang Code, not Erlang Shell - erlang

In the Erlang shell i can re-use my variables very well. like this:
1> R = "muzaaya".
"muzaaya"
2> f(R).
ok
3> R = "muzaaya2".
"muzaaya2"
So, i cannot call f(Variable) in my source code because i do not know which module this function belongs to. I have tried modules like: erlang,shell,c, e.t.c. Has anyone tried re-using variables in Erlang Source code, other than just in the Shell ? How did you do it ? Thanks

No, you can't do this inside a module.

The REPL shell is interpreted, the code file is compiled.
The shell comes in handy to test things, but you would not write your web server in a shell. ;-)
It would be possible and not even difficult for the Erlang hackers to implement an f(V) language construct, but it would not fit the Erlang design model.
Mind, no function could accomplish the forgetting of a variable, so it had to be done in a new native language construct.
When compiled, the virtual machine does not know the variables anymore, as Erlang is run by a rather ordinary stack machine, not much different from the JVM.
It just would not be functional programming if one could rebind a variable V.

The functions which are listed when you type help(). in the shell are shell only functions and cannot be used when programming Erlang. f() is one of there functions.

As other have already pointed out f() is a shell command and only exists in the shell. That f(), and all other shell commands, looks like a normal function call is because the only way to do something in Erlang is to call a function. And the shell does not introduce any new syntax. All shell commands behave like normal functions in that they always return a value.
It was not deemed necessary to be able to use f() in normal functions, although there are many who disagree and find the once only binding of variables unnecessarily restrictive.

Related

Passing environment variables to XMonad spawn

It is my understanding that when invoking spawn "string command" in xmonad, the argument "string command" is actually passed to /bin/sh.
Is there a way to change this behavior ?
More specifically, is it possible to make the instance of the interpreter called by spawn aware of some predefined environment variables (typically, SSH_AUTH_SOCK and SSH_AGENT_PID)?
Of course, it is always possible to resort to spawn "$VARIABLE=stuff; export $VARIABLE; string command", but it bothers me that the variabe should be created and exported each time.
Strictly answering your first question, the safeSpawn function in XMonad.Util.Run (in xmonad-contrib) will run a command without passing it to a shell.
However, that shouldn't make much of a difference as far as environment variables are concerned. In both cases, the spawned command should inherit the environment of the XMonad process (which the shell's startup/rc files could tweak in the case of spawn).
It's possible to set the environment of the started process with general Haskell facilities, e.g. System.Posix.Process.executeFile (and System.Environment.getEnvironment if you want to make a modified copy of the XMonad process' environment).

ocaml: Is there an environment variable to set the search path for #use and #load?

I've been wondering, if there is an environment variable to set the search path for #use and #load for the ocaml toplevel.
What I think I know so far:
I can use findlib instead of "raw" #use and #load. findlib looks at some environment variables for the search path.
I can set a search path with -I.
Experiments seem to indicate that CAML_LD_LIBRARY_PATH does not influence #use (script loading) and #load (byte code file loading).
(updated) I can use #directory to add the desired path - but unfortunately this only takes a string literal, so i can't pass something I read from the environment at run time. (Update: I forgot to mention #directory originally and why it doesn't fit my use case).
What I want to do:
Run ocaml programs as scripts
Point ocaml to script libraries and script fragments with an environment variable
Avoid, in some scenarios, to create a full findlib library.
Presently I'm not using ocaml as interpreter, but a wrapper that adds a path to the invocation. I want to avoid the wrapper.
(I hope the questions makes sense now, after you know my use case)
So: Is there an environment variable to set the search path for #use and #load without resorting to a wrapper?
More Details
What I'm currently doing:
#!/usr/bin/env oscript2
#use "MyScript"
#load "SomeModule.cmo"
(* ... more ocaml *)
oscript2 is a wrapper around ocaml that basically sets the search paths for #use and #load, but finally executes the toplevel ocaml withe something like
exec ocaml -I .... ...some-byte-code-modules... "$#"
MyScript and SomeModule.cmo live outside of the "normal" Ocaml search path. The actual location might change, but after login (and working through the profie scripts) there is an environment variable (today it's OSCRIPTLOAD_PATH) that tells me, where alle loadable byte code and ocaml script files might live.
This works well, a variant of that setup has been in use for years (at least 7).
The one thing that bothers me there, is: The wrapper, the simple fact of it's presence, looks homebrew, so I'd like to avoid it, to make a better impression on potential future users of the script collection. What I'd like to do
#!/usr/bin/env ocaml
#use "MyScript"
#load "SomeModule.cmo"
(* ... more ocaml *)
and have ocaml itself pick up the search path from some environment variable (I'm free to change the variable name, that is under my control, but I don't want to install script and byte code libs into the default search path, and, as already stated, I' asking if I can do that without findlib).
Basically (as already stated at the very beginning) I'm looking for an environment variable that controls the search path for #use and #load. I'm not looking for toplevel directives and not for wrappers that retrofit this feature. (Thanks everyone for those suggestions, but unfortunately I've already gone that road, it's feasible, but here I'm looking for an alternative purely for cosmetic reasons).
Recent research didn't bring up that such a variable exists, but I thought I'd be asking here, before giving up on it.
From inside the OCaml toplevel you can use the #directory "foo";; primitive to add an include directory.
Here's a shell script that runs the OCaml toplevel while adding a directory to the search path taken from an environment variable named EXTRA_OCAML_DIR.
#!/bin/sh
ocaml -I "$EXTRA_OCAML_DIR" "$#"
If you run this instead of ocaml, you will have a directory in the load path specified by an environment variable.
It seems a little obvious, but maybe it will spark an idea that is more helpful.

Can I have a custom function stop a Lua script in Delphi without exiting the application?

I have an application that periodically will run a Lua script. Within the script, on occasion, I have created a custom registered Lua function to check some parameters and decide if the Lua script should continue or exit. The logic ideally should not be part of the script and I can think of using a Lua script to work around this, but I'm wondering if it is possible to stop the execution of a Lua script without ending the application.
I have a custom function written in Delphi and exposed to Lua scripts using Lua 5.1. The Lua script looks something like that shown below and the script in Lua is started using luaL_loadbuffer.
io.write("Script starting\n");
--Custom Function
ExitIfFound();
io.write("Script continuing\n");
My custom function looks something like this, below I have provided one of my attempts where I tried to use lua_error to stop the script...
function ExitIfFound(LuaState: TLuaState): Integer;
var
s: AnsiString;
begin
s := 'ExitIfFound ending script, next Lua script line not called';
lua_pushstring(LuaState, PAnsiString(s));
lua_error(LuaState);
end;
When my custom function is called, I'm unsure as to how to exit the Lua script without any further evaluation. I have seen posts referring to Lua and using setjmp and longjmp in C, but I'm curious how these may translate Delphi.
In the example above, when I use lua_error, the entire program crashes with Windows doing its typical, [luarun.exe has stopped working] ...
With all of this, I'm am still pretty new to integrating Lua to Delphi and hoping that I can find some cleaner options to explore.
There is no clean way to entirely abort a Lua script. The lua_error function is the correct way to signal an error. It is the caller's responsibility to catch the error and propagate it to the next caller.
If you cannot rely on the caller to cooperate, then you can try to exert more control by installing debug hooks. Then the host program will be consulted before continuing to run the script. However, the script can still avoid exiting by using pcall to catch any errors.
The crash in your program is probably not simply from setting an error. Rather, it's likely from using the wrong calling convention on your ExitIfFound function. It needs to be cdecl, but Delphi's default, if you don't specify anything else, is register. Using the wrong calling convention will give you unpredictable parameter values and can lead to a corrupted stack. If you type-casted the function or used the # operator when you called lua_register, then you might have hidden the calling-convention mismatch from the compiler's type checker, which would have otherwise alerted you to the problem at compile time.
When compiled as C++, lua_error will use a exception instead of longjmp, but either way, the caller always catches the error. Exceptions are important, though, when your Delphi code uses compiler-managed types like string, or exception-sensitive constructs like try-finally blocks. In C mode, lua_error calls longjmp to jump directly to the waypoint set by a previous call to setjmp. That jump will skip over any exception handlers like the ones the Delphi compiler sets up to ensure the finally block runs and the string gets cleaned up.
A further headache is that since the compiler cleans up the string while exiting the function, the pointer you put on the Lua stack might not be valid by the time it's used; that depends on whether lua_pushstring makes a copy of its argument.

lua script error checking

Is it possible to check if a lua script contains errors without executing it? I have fallowing code:
if(luaL_loadbuffer(L, data, size, name))
{
fprintf (stderr, "%s", lua_tostring (L, -1));
lua_pop (L, 1);
}
if(lua_pcall(L, 0, 0, 0))
{
fprintf (stderr, "%s", lua_tostring (L, -1));
lua_pop (L, 1);
}
But if the script contains errors it passes first if and it is executed. I want to know if it contains errors when I load it, not when I execute it. Is this possible?
You can use the LUA Compiler. It will only compile your file to bytecode without executing it.
Your program will also have the advantage the run faster if it is compiled.
You can even use the -p option to only perform a syntax checking, according to the linked man page :
-p load files but do not generate any output file. Used mainly for syntax checking or testing precompiled chunks: corrupted files will probably generate errors when loaded. For a thourough integrity test, use -t.
(This was originally meant as a reply to the first comment to Krtek's question, but I ran out of space there and to be honest it works as an answer just fine.)
Functions are essentially values, and thus a named function is actually a variable of that name. Variables, by their very definition, can change as a script is executed. Hell, someone might accidentally redefine one of those functions. Is that bad? To sum my thoughts up: depending on the script, parameters passed and/or actual implementations of those pre-defined functions you speak of (one might unset itself or others, for example), it is not possible to guarantee things work unless you are willing to narrow down some of your demands. Lua is too dynamic for what you are looking for. :)
If you want a flawless test: create a dummy environment with all bells and whistles in place, and see if it crashes anywhere along the way (loading, executing, etc). This is basically a sort of unit test, and as such would be pretty heavy.
If you want a basic check to see if a script has a valid syntax: Krtek gave an answer for that already. I am quite sure (but not 100%) that the lua equivalent is to loadfile or loadstring, and the respective C equivalent is to try and lua_load() the code, each of which convert readable script to bytecode which you would already need to do before you could actually execute the code in your normal all-is-well usecase. (And if that contained function definitions, those would need to be executed later on for the code inside those to execute.)
However, these are the extent of your options with regards to pre-empting errors before they actually happen. Lua is a very dynamic language, and what is a great strength also makes for a weakness when you want to prove correctness. There are simply too many variables involved for a perfect solution.
In general it is not possible, as Lua is a dynamic language, and most of errors happen in runtime.
If you want to check for syntax errors, use luac -p option. I use it as a part of my pre-commit hook, for example.
Other common errors are triggering by misusing the global variables. You may analyze output of luac -l to catch these cases. See here: http://lua-users.org/wiki/DetectingUndefinedVariables.
If you want something more advanced, there are several more-or-less functional static analysis tools for Lua code. Start with LuaInspect.
In any case, you are advised to write unit tests instead of just relying on static code checks. Less pain, more gain.

statically analysing Lua code for potential errors

I'm using a closed-source application that loads Lua scripts and allows some customization through modifying these scripts. Unfortunately that application is not very good at generating useful log output (all I get is 'script failed') if something goes wrong in one of the Lua scripts.
I realize that dynamic languages are pretty much resistant to static code analysis in the way C++ code can be analyzed for example.
I was hoping though, there would be a tool that runs through a Lua script and e.g. warns about variables that have not been defined in the context of a particular script.
Essentially what I'm looking for is a tool that for a script:
local a
print b
would output:
warning: script.lua(1): local 'a' is not used'
warning: script.lua(2): 'b' may not be defined'
It can only really be warnings for most things but that would still be useful! Does such a tool exist? Or maybe a Lua IDE with a feature like that build in?
Thanks, Chris
Automated static code analysis for Lua is not an easy task in general. However, for a limited set of practical problems it is quite doable.
Quick googling for "lua lint" yields these two tools: lua-checker and Lua lint.
You may want to roll your own tool for your specific needs however.
Metalua is one of the most powerful tools for static Lua code analysis. For example, please see metalint, the tool for global variable usage analysis.
Please do not hesitate to post your question on Metalua mailing list. People there are usually very helpful.
There is also lua-inspect, which is based on metalua that was already mentioned. I've integrated it into ZeroBrane Studio IDE, which generates an output very similar to what you'd expect. See this SO answer for details: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11789348/1442917.
For checking globals, see this lua-l posting. Checking locals is harder.
You need to find a parser for lua (should be available as open source) and use it to parse the script into a proper AST tree. Use that tree and a simple variable visibility tracker to find out when a variable is or isn't defined.
Usually the scoping rules are simple:
start with the top AST node and an empty scope
item look at the child statements for that node. Every variable declaration should be added in the current scope.
if a new scope is starting (for example via a { operator) create a new variable scope inheriting the variables in the current scope).
when a scope is ending (for example via } ) remove the current child variable scope and return to the parent.
Iterate carefully.
This will provide you with what variables are visible where inside the AST. You can use this information and if you also inspect the expressions AST nodes (read/write of variables) you can find out your information.
I just started using luacheck and it is excellent!
The first release was from 2015.

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