[bug-gawk] optional strict gawk semantics

[Assaf Gordon]

Hello Arnold and all,

I'd like to ask your opinion about an idea I've been toying around with, 
regarding gawk.

I'm looking for a way to make gawk stricter with regards to input validation 
(but preferably doing so 'automatically', ie not adding explicit awk code).

Specifically, I'd like to trigger an error when:
1. running numeric operation on a string value (one that can't be converted to 
a number)
2. when accessing a field number which doesn't exist (e.g. "$5" when the input 
has only 3 columns).
3. When accessing an array with a non-existing index

Do you think such addition is possible in current gawk?
And would you consider such feature for inclusion (enabled with a command-line 
option of course) ?
If so I could try to come up with a patch.

Thanks,
 - Assaf