Re: typeof() creates elements in an array

[Andrew J. Schorr]

On Thu, Sep 30, 2021 at 01:09:11AM -0600, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:
> arnold@skeeve.com wrote:
> 
> > > array lookup for a non-existent value looks like it has to create a new
> > > entry with a NODE value, and so I guess that has to have an explicit type
> > > at that moment. I don't think we have a notion of an untyped Node_val.
> >
> > We have Node_var_new, which is pretty close.
> >
> > I will look at this when I get a few minutes.
> 
> I looked at this. It's possible to get the simple case of
> 
>       print(typeof(x[0])
>       x[0][1] = "foo"
> 
> to work, but the test suite then breaks pretty badly.  I don't think
> it's worth the effort to make this really work. I will try to update
> the manual and clarify things some more.

Thanks for looking, but I suspected that it would be really difficult
in view of current internals. As a general language feature, it might be
nice to avoid locking down an array element type the moment it is first
referenced, but my sense is that it would be a big job to achieve this,
if it's possible at all.

Regards,
Andy