[tex-k] Is there a way to find the error line?

[Wolfgang Helbig]

Dear Yannis,

in Pascal, the semicolon seperates two statements, whereas in ALGOL and 
C, the semicolon terminates a statement.

Or in Pascal, the semicolon is never part of a statement and in C it is 
always is part of a statement.

In Pascal, the empty string is a statement, called "empty statement". It 
does nothing.
So in parts of the program, where the syntax rules allow one or more 
statements, you can always put the semicolon without changing the 
meaning of the program.

But there are places, where only one statement is accepted, notably the 
'then' part of an if statement: A semicolon after the statement in the 
'then'-part ends the 'if'-statement, which is followed by the empty 
statement. If your if-statement does have an else part, an 'else' is 
following the empty statement. But 'else' may only follow the 'then' 
part of the 'if'-statement, not the if-statement as a whole.

Unfortunately, some people misuse the empty statement and feel licensed 
to terminate every statement with a semicolon -- A confusing step 
backward in the evolution of ALGOL-like languages. A step forward of 
course is Dijkstra's Guarded Commands notation. In fact, the empty 
statement is the very first statement in Dijkstra: "A Discipline of 
Programming", 1976, p. 25. and in Jensen, Wirth: "Pascal User Manual and 
Report", 3rd ed. 1985, p. 169.

Alas, compilers are rare for dot.not, as I prefer to call Dijkstra's 
notation. You recognize by its dots in the notation for arrays.

greetings,
Wolfgang
> dear Karl,
>
> thanks for your answer. I finally found the error, it was an 
> unnecessary semicolon after an "end".
>
> I have a hard time finding the precise rules: when are semicolons 
> after "end" necessary / optional / forbidden?
>
> (The only thing I know for sure is that the semicolon is forbidden 
> when we are in an if-test
> and an "else" is following:
>
> if xxx begin xxx end else begin xxx end;   <--- no semicolon between 
> "end" and "else"
>
> but beside that I couldn't find precise information and TeX's Pascal 
> code is either not very consistent
> with respect to semicolons or maybe it follows some pattern that I 
> wasn't able to find out yet…)
>
> Thanks again for your help,
>
> Yannis
>
>
>> Le 21 mars 2021 à 02:57, Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org 
>> <mailto:karl at freefriends.org>> a écrit :
>>
>>    Is there a way to localize the error?
>>
>> For the record, this is the brief reply I sent to when Yannis asked me
>> separately. It's all I have. Web2c is a lousy development environment,
>> no question.
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2021 11:19:09 -0700
>> From: Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org <mailto:karl at freefriends.org>>
>> To: yannis1962 at gmail.com <mailto:yannis1962 at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: Debugging
>> In-Reply-To: <466F362F-4E43-4655-B0FC-2710ABD215AD at gmail.com 
>> <mailto:466F362F-4E43-4655-B0FC-2710ABD215AD at gmail.com>>
>>
>>    Can you tell me how to localize the error?
>>
>> There is no good way. Just have to go back to the original, make sure it
>> works, and add individual lines until you find the error, which
>> apparently has something to do with "true" and a semicolon.
>>
>> Sometimes the .c file(s) left in (in your case)
>>  /var/folders/1n/fvs3dd2d5gqghwcw8khb41_h0000gn/T/
>> as given by the error msg provide a clue. [...]
>
>
> IMT Atlantique <http://www.imt-atlantique.fr> 	
> *Yannis HARALAMBOUS*
> Professor
> Computer Science Department
> UMR CNRS 6285 Lab-STICC
> Site web IMT Atlantique 
> <http://perso.telecom-bretagne.eu/yannisharalambous/>Twitter IMT 
> Atlantique <https://twitter.com/y_haralambous>LinkedIn IMT Atlantique 
> <https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannis-haralambous-5529073?trk=hp-identity-name>
> Technopôle Brest-Iroise CS 83818
> 29238 Brest Cedex 3, France
> Une école del'IMT <http://www.imt.fr>
>
> /Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature./  
>    (Rich Kulawiec)
>
>


-- 
Wolfgang Helbig
Stauferstr. 22
71334 Waiblingen
07151-920 227

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