1. CPS 506 Comparative Programming Languages Names, Scope, Expression

2. Names Design issues – Case sensitivity – Special Words (Keywords, Reserve words) Length – If too short, they cannot be meaningful – Language examples: FORTRAN 95: maximum of 31 C99: no limit but only the first 63 are significant; also, external names are limited to a maximum of 31 C#, Ada, and Java: no limit, and all are significant C++: no limit, but implementers often impose one 2

3. Names Special characters – PHP Variable names begin with dollar signs Case sensitive Starting with a letter or underscore $var = 'Bob'; $Var = 'Joe'; echo "$var, $Var"; 3

4. Names Special characters – Perl: all variable names begin with special characters, which specify the variable’s type Case sensitive Starting with a letter or underscore $ for scalar variable $yname="test"; @ for array variable @years=(2003,2004,2005); % for hash variable %navBar=('1' => 'index‘,'2' => 'perl‘,'3' => 'php’); 4

5. Names Special characters – Ruby: Local variables start with lowercase letter Global variables start with $ Instance variables begin with @ Class variables begin with @@ – Python Case sensitive Starting with a letter or underscore (Details in their own sessions) 5

6. Names Case sensitivity – Disadvantage: readability (names that look alike are different) Names in the C-based languages are case sensitive Names in others are not Worse in C++, Java, and C# because predefined names are mixed case (e.g. IndexOutOfBoundsException) 6

7. Names Special words – An aid to readability; used to delimit or separate statement clauses A keyword is a word that is special only in certain contexts, e.g., in Fortran – Real VarName (Real is a data type followed with a name, therefore Real is a keyword) – Real = 3.4 (Real is a variable) A reserved word is a special word that cannot be used as a user- defined name Potential problem with reserved words: If there are too many, many collisions occur (e.g., COBOL has 300 reserved words!) 7

8. Variables Six attributes – Name – Address(l-value) – Type – Value(r-value) – Scope – Lifetime 8

9. Scope The scope of a variable is the range of statements over which it is visible The nonlocal variables of a program unit are those that are visible but not declared there The scope rules of a language determine how references to names are associated with variables 9

10. Scope Static scope – Scope of a variable can be statically determined prior to execution – C, Pascal, Java, Scheme, ML, Haskell Dynamic Scope – Is based on the calling sequence of subprograms, and thus can be determined only at run-time – Original LISP, logo, Emacs LISP Common LISP and Perl have both 10

11. Scope (con’t) To connect a name reference to a variable, you (or the compiler) must find the declaration – Search process: search declarations, first locally, then in increasingly larger enclosing scopes, until one is found for the given name – Enclosing static scopes (to a specific scope) are called its static ancestors; the nearest static ancestor is called a static parent 11

12. Scope (con’t) Variables can be hidden from a unit by having a "closer" variable with the same name – Ada allows access to these "hidden" variables E.g. unit.name 12

13. Scope (con’t) Example in C: void sub() { int count; while (...) { int count; count++;... } … } - Note: legal in C and C++, but not in Java and C# - too error-prone 13

14. 14 Labeled Namespaces A labeled namespace is any language construct that contains – Definitions – A region of the program where those definitions apply – A name that can be used to access those definitions from outside the construct ML has one called a structure…

15. 15 ML Structures A little like a block: a can be used anywhere from definition to the end But the definitions are also available outside, using the structure name: Fred.a and Fred.f structure Fred = struct val a = 1; fun f x = x + a; end;

16. 16 Other Labeled Namespaces Namespaces that are just namespaces: – C++ namespace – Modula-3 module – Ada package – Java package Namespaces that serve other purposes too: – Class definitions in class-based object- oriented languages

17. 17 Example The variables min and max would be visible within the rest of the class Also accessible from outside, as Month.min and Month.max public class Month { public static int min = 1; public static int max = 12; … }

18. 18 Namespace Advantages Two conflicting goals: – Use memorable, simple names like max – For globally accessible things, use uncommon names like maxSupplierBid, names that will not conflict with other parts of the program With namespaces, you can accomplish both: – Within the namespace, you can use max – From outside, SupplierBid.max

19. Declaration Order C, C++, Java, and C# allow variable declarations to appear anywhere a statement can appear – In C, C++, and Java, the scope of all local variables is from the declaration to the end of the block – In C#, the scope of any variable declared in a block is the whole block, regardless of the position of the declaration in the block » However, a variable still must be declared before it can be used 19

20. Declaration Order (con’t) In C++, Java, and C#, variables can be declared in for statements The scope of such variables is restricted to the for construct 20

21. Based on calling sequences of program units, not their textual layout (temporal versus spatial) References to variables are connected to declarations by searching back through the chain of subprogram calls that forced execution to this point 21 Dynamic Scope

22. Scope Example Big - declaration of X Sub1 - declaration of X -... call Sub2... Sub2... - reference to X -... call Sub1 … Big calls Sub1 Sub1 calls Sub2 Sub2 uses X 22

23. Scope Example (con’t) Static scoping Reference to X is to Big's X Dynamic scoping Reference to X is to Sub1's X Evaluation of Dynamic Scoping: Advantage: convenience Disadvantages: – While a subprogram is executing, its variables are visible to all subprograms it calls – Impossible to statically type check – Poor readability- it is not possible to statically determine the type of a variable 23

24. Scope and Lifetime Scope and lifetime are sometimes closely related, but are different concepts The scope of a variable specifies where a variable’s name can be used in a program The lifetime of a variable specifies how long the storage for that variable exists in memory. Consider a static variable inside a C function – Its scope is static and local to that function – Its lifetime extends over the entire execution of the program. 24

25. Expression Expressions are the fundamental means of specifying computations in a programming language To understand expression evaluation, need to be familiar with the orders of operator and operand evaluation Essence of imperative languages is dominant role of assignment statements 25

26. Expression (con’t) Arithmetic Expression – Arithmetic evaluation was one of the motivations for the development of the first programming languages – Arithmetic expressions consist of Operators Operands Parentheses function calls 26

27. Expression (con’t) Design issues for arithmetic expressions – Operator precedence rules? – Operator associativity rules? – Order of operand evaluation? – Operand evaluation side effects? A + FUN(A) int b = 10; System.out.println((b=3) + b); – Operator overloading? – Type mixing in expressions? 27

28. Expression (con’t) Operators – A unary operator has one operand b = !a; – A binary operator has two operands c = a + b; – A ternary operator has three operands int absValue = (a < 0) ? -a : a; 28

29. Expression (con’t) Operator Precedence Rules – The operator precedence rules for expression evaluation define the order in which “adjacent” operators of different precedence levels are evaluated – Typical precedence levels parentheses unary operators ** (if the language supports it) *, / +, - 29

30. Expression (con’t) Operator Associativity Rules – For expression evaluation define the order in which adjacent operators with the same precedence level are evaluated – Typical associativity rules Left to right, except **, which is right to left Sometimes unary operators associate right to left (e.g., in FORTRAN) APL and Smalltalk have no operator precedence rules – APL: strictly right to left – Smalltalk: strictly left to right – Precedence and associativity rules can be overridden with parentheses 30

31. Expression (con’t) Expressions in Ruby – All arithmetic, relational, and assignment operators, as well as array indexing, shifts, and bit-wise logic operators, are implemented as methods One result of this is that these operators can all be overridden by application programs 31

32. Expression (con’t) Conditional Expressions – C-based languages (e.g., C, C++) – An example: average = (count == 0)? 0 : sum / count – Evaluates as if written like if (count == 0) average = 0 else average = sum /count 32

33. Expression (con’t) Operand evaluation order – Variables: fetch the value from memory – Constants: sometimes a fetch from memory; sometimes the constant is in the machine language instruction – Parenthesized expressions: evaluate all operands and operators first – The most interesting case is when an operand is a function call 33

34. Expression (con’t) Functional side effects – When a function changes a two-way parameter or a non-local variable Problem with functional side effects – When a function referenced in an expression alters another operand of the expression; e.g., for a parameter change: a = 10; /* assume that fun changes its parameter */ b = a + fun(&a); 34

35. Expression (con’t) Two possible solutions to the problem – Write the language definition to disallow functional side effects No two-way parameters in functions No non-local references in functions Advantage: it works! Disadvantage: inflexibility of one-way parameters and lack of non-local references – Write the language definition to demand that operand evaluation order be fixed Disadvantage: limits some compiler optimizations Java requires that operands appear to be evaluated in left-to- right order 35

36. Overloaded Operators Use of an operator for more than one purpose is called operator overloading Some are common (e.g., + for int and float ) Some are potential trouble (e.g., * in C and C++) – Loss of compiler error detection (omission of an operand should be a detectable error) – Some loss of readability C++ and C# allow user-defined overloaded operators Potential problems: – Users can define nonsense operations – Readability may suffer, even when the operators make sense 36

37. Relational and Boolean Expressions Relational Expressions – Use relational operators and operands of various types – Evaluate to some Boolean representation – Operator symbols used vary somewhat among languages ( !=, /=, ~=,.NE., <>, # ) JavaScript and PHP have two additional relational operator, === and !== – Similar to their cousins, == and !=, except that they check both value and type – PHP “0 == false”“0 === false” 37

38. Relational and Boolean Expressions Boolean Expressions – Operands are Boolean and the result is Boolean – Example operators FORTRAN 77FORTRAN 90C Ada.AND.and && and.OR.or||or.NOT. not ! not xor 38

39. Relational and Boolean Expressions Boolean type in C – C89 has no Boolean type--it uses int type with 0 for false and nonzero for true – One odd characteristic of C’s expressions a < b < c is a legal expression, but the result is not what you might expect Left operator is evaluated, producing 0 or 1 The evaluation result is then compared with the third operand (i.e., c ) 39

40. Short Circuit Evaluation An expression in which the result is determined without evaluating all of the operands and/or operators Example: (13*a) * (b/13–1) – If a is zero, there is no need to evaluate (b/13-1) Problem with non-short-circuit evaluation index = 1; while (index <= length) && (LIST[index] != value) index++; – When index=length, LIST [index] will cause an indexing problem (assuming LIST has length -1 elements) 40

41. Short Circuit Evaluation (con’t) C, C++, and Java – use short-circuit evaluation for the usual Boolean operators ( && and || ) Ada – programmer can specify either short-circuit is specified with “ and then ” and “ or else ” Short-circuit evaluation exposes the potential problem of side effects in expressions e.g. (a > b) || (b++ / 3) 41

42. Assignment Statements The general syntax The assignment operator = FORTRAN, BASIC, the C-based languages := ALGOLs, Pascal, Ada = can be bad when it is overloaded for the relational operator for equality (that’s why the C-based languages use == as the relational operator) 42

43. Assignment Statements (con’t) Conditional targets (Perl) ($flag ? $total : $subtotal) = 0 Which is equivalent to if ($flag){ $total = 0 } else { $subtotal = 0 } 43

44. Assignment Statements (con’t) Compound Operators – A shorthand method of specifying a commonly needed form of assignment – Introduced in ALGOL; adopted by C – Example a = a + b is written as a += b 44

45. Assignment Statements (con’t) Unary assignment operators – in C-based languages combine increment and decrement operations with assignment – Examples sum = ++count sum = count++ count++ -count++ 45

46. Assignment Statements (con’t) Assignment as an Expression – In C, C++, and Java, the assignment statement produces a result and can be used as operands – An example: while ((ch = getchar())!= EOF){…} ch = getchar() is carried out; the result (assigned to ch ) is used as a conditional value for the while statement 46

47. Assignment Statements (con’t) List Assignment – Perl and Ruby support list assignments – Example ($first, $second, $third) = (20, 30, 40); 47

48. Exercises 1.Indicate the return value of x by calling function f2 using static and dynamic scoping. int x = 0; int f1() { return (x + 1); } int f2() { int x = 1; return f1(); } 2.Using an example in C++ show the difference between scope and lifetime of a variable (for instance in a function that call another function). 48

49. Exercises 3.What are the results of the following expression in APL and Java? 2 + 3 * 4 – 10 / 5 4.Write a function that includes following sequence of statements in C, C++, C# and Java, run and compare the results. x = 21; int x; x = 42; 49