Re: block-scope finalization

[Dibyendu Majumdar <mobile@...>]

On 24 November 2015 at 20:45, Coda Highland <chighland@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> What is wrong with the following proposal?
>>>
>>>   local <some mark to be invented> name = exp
>>>
>>> Unlike a regular 'local' declaration, this one must define only one
>>> variable and it must be initialized. (Both restrictions could be easily
>>> removed; they are more about programming style.)
>>>
>>> When the local 'name' goes out of scope, then:
>>>
>>> 1 - if its value is a function, that function is called (no parameters)
>>> 2 - if its value is a table/userdata, its __close (or some other new
>>> name) metamethod, if present, is called.
>>>
>>> Otherwise, 'name' is like any other local variable.
>>>
>>
>> I haven't followed the whole conversation so apologies if I have got
>> this wrong. If the aim is to provide a 'finally' type feature then an
>> important aspect is that the finally code must execute even when
>> exceptions occur. In the above proposal how will Lua ensure that the
>> function will always be called when the block exits even if there was
>> an exception which jumped down the stack?
>>
>
> Because "going out of scope" is really just another name for "is
> popped off the stack." If an error unwinds the stack, then it would
> have to check for the presence of these marked slots on the way down
> instead of just changing the stack top index.
>

I understand that - but Lua does a longjmp when exceptions are thrown.
Are you saying that the location where the exception is caught (via
setjmp) the stack would be walked up and these functions executed?
Regards