Aladdin - Scala Bugtracking

	[#389]	project: compiler	priority: low	category: bug
	submitter	assigned to	status	date submitted
	Philippe	Martin	fixed	2004-12-13 19:38:05.0
subject	Symbol literals should be removed or fixed.
code	object Test { def a = 'a; def b = 'B; def c = '+; def d = '`\n`; }
what happened	tmp/test.scala:4: unclosed character literal def c = '+; ^ tmp/test.scala:5: unclosed character literal def d = '`\n`; ^ tmp/test.scala:5: unclosed string literal def d = '`\n`; ^ three errors found
what expected	Currently, chapter 1 and chapter A of the specification do not agree on the lexical syntax. However, if chapter 1 is right then all four symbol literals should be refused because there are no symbol literals at all in chapter 1. And, if chapter A is right, then all four literals should be accepted because chapter A states the following: symbolLit ::= `\'' id If chapter A is right then `'+` should be a legal symbol literal. However this literal might be a bit surprising. Indeed, `'+.name` would not return `"+"` but `"$plus"`.
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Changes of this bug report

Burak edited on 2005-06-10 18:45:14.0

change to specification bug, and reassign to Stephane ( talk about in a meeting ?). In any case, it's not me who is "responsible" for symbols - once they were important for XML, but since then, they are also used in exercises etc.

Martin edited on 2006-07-12 12:36:03.0

I fixed as follows:

  plainid        ::=  upper idrest
                   |  varid
                   |  op
  id             ::=  plainid
                   |  `\`' stringLit `\`'
  symbolLiteral  ::=  `'' plainid

So the first 3 cases are OK now, the last one will give an error. I updated the spec accordingly.

Martin edited on 2006-07-12 12:52:25.0