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Add strict pointers: AS PTR TO, POINT ... AT, and the -> operator

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A pointer is a distinct declared kind rather than a mode a structure can be in,
which is what "strict" means here: `.` requires a structure on its left and `->`
requires a pointer, neither stands in for the other, and both refusals name the
operator the program should have used. So a reader always knows from the
spelling whether the thing on the left is their own copy or somebody else's
data.

Assignment still copies. POINT is the only way to share, so a program that never
writes it can never be surprised by aliasing -- and `P@ = A@` is refused with a
message saying to POINT it instead, rather than quietly becoming the one
assignment in the language that does not copy.

PTR TO is also the only way a TYPE may refer to itself, since by value it would
have no finite size. That is what makes a linked list possible, and
tests/language/structures/pointers.bas builds one, walks it and renders it.

Rendering follows pointers, so it needs a depth bound where copying does not:
copy stops at a pointer by construction, but two nodes pointing at each other is
easy to write and PRINT would not come back. Four levels, chosen so the bound
bites before the 256-byte render buffer does -- otherwise a cycle would stop
because it ran out of room rather than because it was told to.

Three things the work turned up, all now pinned by tests:

A freshly DIMmed record printed `(UNDEFINED STRING REPRESENTATION FOR 0)` for
every field. Slots now take the type their field declared, so it reads as zeros.

Adding POINT as a verb makes POINT unusable as a type name, and the parser
reported that as "Expected expression or literal" pointing at the line rather
than the problem. The prescan now refuses a reserved word as a type name and
says so.

Field names follow the same reserved-word rule as variable names, enforced by
the loader's own scan -- `TO@` is a bad field name for exactly the reason `TO#`
is a bad variable name. Recorded rather than worked around.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Andrew Kesterson
2026-08-01 11:48:09 -04:00
parent 6a7c8cd920
commit 2a3f68d2c4
17 changed files with 488 additions and 17 deletions
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48
src/parser_commands.c
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@@ -568,6 +568,45 @@ akerr_ErrorContext *akbasic_parse_label(akbasic_Parser *parser, akbasic_ASTLeaf
* Making them reserved words would break any existing program with a variable
* called `AS#`, and they are only meaningful in this one position.
*/
/**
* @brief `POINT P@ AT target`.
*
* Two expressions with a word between them rather than a comma, because that is
* how it reads: the verb says what is being done and `AT` says which way round
* the two operands go. `POINT P@, A@` would read equally well in either
* direction, and getting it backwards would silently point the wrong thing.
*
* The two are chained through `.next`, the argument link, so the runtime reaches
* them with akbasic_leaf_first_argument() like any other verb's operands.
*/
akerr_ErrorContext *akbasic_parse_point(akbasic_Parser *parser, akbasic_ASTLeaf **dest)
{
PREPARE_ERROR(errctx);
akbasic_ASTLeaf *pointer = NULL;
akbasic_ASTLeaf *target = NULL;
akbasic_ASTLeaf *arglist = NULL;
akbasic_ASTLeaf *command = NULL;
akbasic_Token *word = NULL;
PASS(errctx, akbasic_parser_expression(parser, &pointer));
FAIL_ZERO_RETURN(errctx, akbasic_parser_match1(parser, AKBASIC_TOK_IDENTIFIER),
AKBASIC_ERR_SYNTAX, "Expected POINT <pointer> AT <structure>");
PASS(errctx, akbasic_parser_previous(parser, &word));
FAIL_ZERO_RETURN(errctx, (strcasecmp(word->lexeme, "AT") == 0), AKBASIC_ERR_SYNTAX,
"Expected AT after POINT <pointer>, not %s", word->lexeme);
PASS(errctx, akbasic_parser_expression(parser, &target));
pointer->next = target;
PASS(errctx, akbasic_parser_new_leaf(parser, &arglist));
arglist->leaftype = AKBASIC_LEAF_ARGUMENTLIST;
arglist->operator_ = AKBASIC_TOK_FUNCTION_ARGUMENT;
arglist->right = pointer;
PASS(errctx, akbasic_parser_new_leaf(parser, &command));
PASS(errctx, akbasic_leaf_new_command(command, "POINT", arglist));
*dest = command;
SUCCEED_RETURN(errctx);
}
/**
* @brief `TYPE NAME`, whose body was already read by the prescan.
*
@@ -605,7 +644,14 @@ akerr_ErrorContext *akbasic_parse_dim(akbasic_Parser *parser, akbasic_ASTLeaf **
PASS(errctx, akbasic_parser_previous(parser, &word));
if ( strcasecmp(word->lexeme, "PTR") == 0 ) {
command->literal_int = 1;
FAIL_ZERO_RETURN(errctx, akbasic_parser_match1(parser, AKBASIC_TOK_IDENTIFIER),
/*
* `TO` is already a verb -- FOR ... TO owns it -- so it arrives as a
* command token rather than an identifier. Matched by lexeme here for
* the same reason AS and PTR are: these three words mean something only
* in this one position, and reserving them would break any program with
* a variable called TO#.
*/
FAIL_ZERO_RETURN(errctx, akbasic_parser_match1(parser, AKBASIC_TOK_COMMAND),
AKBASIC_ERR_SYNTAX, "Expected TO after PTR");
PASS(errctx, akbasic_parser_previous(parser, &word));
FAIL_ZERO_RETURN(errctx, (strcasecmp(word->lexeme, "TO") == 0), AKBASIC_ERR_SYNTAX,