A scalar now lives in the variable record (`akbasic_Variable::inlinevalue`)
rather than drawing from the value pool, so a `GOSUB` local, a `FOR` counter and
a `DEF` parameter cost nothing at all.
The pool is a bump allocator with no free, and its comment justified that with
"nothing in BASIC destroys a variable". Scope exit does: it marks the variable
slot unused, `new_variable()` memsets the slot it hands back -- clearing
`values` -- and `variable_init()` therefore took *fresh* slots for a variable
whose old ones were still counted. Every scope that created a local leaked, with
no diagnostic until the pool ran dry on whichever line happened to be unlucky.
Six thousand `GOSUB`s creating one local used to die on the 4091st at `LOC# = 1`
with "Array of 1 elements does not fit in the 0 remaining value slots". They now
run. A `DEF` called eight thousand times used to die between the four and five
thousandth -- the leaking slot was the call scope's parameter, which is a scalar
-- and both forms now run. A game creating one name per tick was dead in half a
minute; the Breakout in examples/ was, after twenty-five seconds.
**A `@` name is the one exclusion, and it is the whole of it.** A structure or a
pointer to one keeps pool storage, because a pointer into a record outlives the
scope that DIMmed it -- docs/16-structures.md says nothing is reclaimed and
`prev_environment()` relies on it. The name suffix is the right test rather than
`structtype`, which the DIM path sets *after* calling `variable_init()`. A local
array therefore still leaks, deliberately, and is now the narrow rule the
tutorial teaches.
`SWAP` needed the other half: it copies whole variable records, so the `values`
pointer that came over named the other variable's inline slot -- which by then
held this variable's own old value -- and SWAP silently did nothing. Caught by
tests/language/housekeeping/verbs.bas, which is the golden corpus earning its
keep.
tests/value_pool.c is the new coverage. It asserts the mechanism as well as the
consequence: a later change that moved arrays inline too would pass every
behavioural case and quietly break the pointer guarantee. The sharpest case
takes the pool's whole 4096 slots in four arrays after two hundred scope
entries, so one leaked slot has nowhere to go.
Chapter 17 Step 3 taught "declare every name at the top" and no longer needs to.
It now teaches what is still true -- a name first seen inside a subroutine dies
at RETURN, so a routine cannot answer its caller through one -- and its
demonstration is the array case, which still fails.
TODO.md section 6 item 30 and section 9 item 1, both struck.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Two complete games in `examples/breakout/`, both 100% BASIC: `characters/`
draws its wall in the text grid with two `DATA` sprites for the ball and
paddle, and `sprites/` loads CC0 artwork and captures its whole screen with
`SSHAPE`/`SPRSAV`. They take opposite shapes for reasons that are entirely
this interpreter's, which is what the chapters are for.
`docs/17-tutorial-breakout.md` and `docs/18-tutorial-breakout-artwork.md`
build each one a step at a time, and end in a checklist of the rules a real
program runs into: create every name before the loop starts, write a text row
whole, loop with `GOTO` rather than `DO`, put the float on the left. Every
trap is a runnable block with its own output rather than a claim -- the value
pool dying at four thousand names, the skipped `BEGIN` block that breaks its
caller's `RETURN`, `SSHAPE` ignoring a subscript, `READ`'s single cursor.
Five figures, generated from the listings beside them by `docs_screenshots`,
and a `breakout_art` setup so the ones that load artwork load the example's
own. The character game's wall cannot be photographed -- the screenshot host
omits the text layer on purpose -- so it is shown as compared output instead.
`docs/07-sound.md` never said `SOUND`'s frequency is a SID register value
rather than hertz, which both games depend on. It says so now, with the
conversion from `src/audio_tables.c:84`.
`TODO.md` gains the thirteen defects the two games turned up -- §6 items 30
to 33 and all of §9 -- each with a reduction that fits on a screen, the file
and line of the cause, and what a fix would touch.
Verified: `docs_examples` passes in both build configurations,
`docs_screenshots --check` re-renders all thirteen figures and byte-compares
them, the full 109-test suite passes in both builds, every quoted fragment
was checked to appear verbatim in the listing it came from, and every
relative link and anchor resolves.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
