Re: I'd give my right arm for a continue statement

[Steve Litt <slitt@...>]

On Thursday 27 January 2011 11:42:13 Roberto Ierusalimschy wrote:
> > > I believe that this "break N" will kill code readability as sure as
> > > "goto" would.
> >
> > Yeah, I would get lost pretty quick!  Named labels would help [...]
> 
> If that could save Steve's right arm, we like the idea of break with
> labels.
> 
> In Lua, we cannot have traditional labels, because the syntax "foo:"
> already has a different meaning. Instead, a simple syntax would be to
> add labels only to "do end" blocks, for instance like this:
> 
>   do :label:
>     ...
>   end
> 
> Then, a continue could be written like here:
> 
>   while cond do
>     do :process_item:
> 
>                     break :process_item:
> 
>     end
>   end

Thanks Roberto,

From my perspective, the preceding has little advantage over putting the stuff 
from break :process_item to end in an if statement -- both involve an extra 
level of nesting.

My right arm is a little safer these days due to the special iterator user 
hack I suggested a week ago. Since then it's been refined, shortened, made a 
little more Lua like, and tested in simple situations. When I learn modules it 
I'll packaged as a module, after which everyone else will probably improve it 
to the point that it will end up being practical and perform reasonably.

It is, however, nice to have an option granted by the language itself, and in 
performance critical situations I'll probably use your labeled break rather 
than a customized iterator.

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt
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