Re: Possible bug with compilation/stdout?

[Per Bothner <per at bothner dot com>]

balaban ittai <ittaib@cs.bgu.ac.il> writes:

> Now I'm a bit confused. From what I understand, you can compile a module
> as an "instance" module (which is the only type implemented now). This is
> fine with me.
> So how does a line like `(new SchemeTest()).theMainMethod();' not fit in
> with this scheme?

It does, partly.  However, the "top-level actions" are performed by
a "run" method, so you need to do:
  SchemeTest st = new SchemeTest();
  st.run();
  st.theMainMethod();
(which causes the the-main-method to be called twice).

There are various reasons that Kawa uses a "run" method:
* It seems cleaner to separate out the top-level actions, and not
have them be run by the constuctors.  This is similar to how Thread works.
* It makes it easier to handle circular imports if you do it in two
phases (constructor+run).  The idea is that an import (require) is
called inside the "run" method *after* the current module has been
created and registered.  So if the required module ends up requiring
the current module, it finds it immediately.

> 1) I haven't been able to use the `this' syntax. Whenever I use (this),
> anywhere in my code, the compiler crashes with an internal error
> (NullPointerException).

The implementation of (this) is a bit of a kludge.  I haven't had time
to make it robust.  The applet example in the manual works (at least
it did when I tried it).  I recommend you use (this) inside a function,
but not inside any tested scopes.

> 2) Compiling files into packages: If I have (module-name ...) in the
> module source, where ... is 'foo.SchemeTest or "foo.SchemeTest" or
> <foo.SchemeTest>, the module always gets compiled as a toplevel (not
> inside package foo) class. The only way this works is using the
> -T foo.SchemeTest command line option. Note that even using
> -P foo. -T SchemeTest doesn't work.

Indeed, there is a bug.  I'm working on it.

By the way:  I'm glad you're trying this stuff out.  This is the first
feedback I've gotten on the new module facilities!
-- 
	--Per Bothner
per@bothner.com   http://www.bothner.com/~per/