Subj : Re: anyone know of a language where nonexistent functions return no error?
To   : comp.programming
From : Gerry Quinn
Date : Fri Jul 22 2005 01:10 pm

In article <1122029169.334779.199450@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, 
gswork@mailcity.com says...
> pantagruel wrote:

> > An existent function calling such a nonexistent function would
> > basically be left with an empty string, unless the programmer defined
> > specific error generation. Theoretical literature welcome. hope this is
> > a reasonable question to ask here
> 
> Do you mean something like
> 
> a=func1(b)
> 
> and if func1 doesn't exist the compiled program will just put an empty
> string into a?
> 
> Imagine the debugging nightmares when you have a function called
> 'func1' and misstype it elsewhere as funv1, causing this 'no error'
> behaviour where you'd really want to know what you did.

Unfortunately there are languages that do this with variables, and some 
people even claim this is good, for reasons that are obscure to me.  I 
suspect it is probably the same with functions.

- Gerry Quinn

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