[Chicken-users] Question regarding "length"

[Abdulaziz Ghuloum]

Greetings,

I sent this question to the list last week but it complained about me
not being a subscriber.  I'll assume it did not get through, so here
it is again:

Looking at the definition of length in chicken, I noticed that it
detects neither circularities nor improper lists.  For example:
(length '(1 2 . 3)) => 2
and
(length (let ((x (cons 1 2))) (set-cdr! x x) x)) => infinite loop.

I'm wondering if this is a bug, or a design decision.  And if it
is by design (my guess), I would like to know the rationale behind it.

Thanks.

Aziz,,,