Possible bug in Regina with FOR repetitor 2**31 or greater

[Arthur T.]

I plan to open a report of this problem, but I'm having difficulty
deciding on a pithy, meaningful title. Have you any suggestions?

Feel free to point out how I've misinterpreted something and that
this isn't an actual bug. That's happened to me before. I couldn't
find anything in the documentation suggesting this limit. Does it
fail for other people? Does it fail or work on other REXXes?

If you try it, you may see that the error message on 3.9.3 is even
weirder than on older versions. Regardless of level, notice the
difference between DO I = 1 FOR N and DO I = 1 TO N.

<code>
say 'digits() =' digits()
n = 2**31 /* a 10-digit number */
say format(n,,,0) length(n) '(' || n || ')'
do i = 1 for n
say "In first loop for" n
leave i
end

numeric digits 20
say 'digits() =' digits()
n = 2**31 - 1
say format(n,,,0) length(n) '(' || n || ')'
do i = 1 for n
say "In second loop for" n
leave i
end
n = 2**31
say format(n,,,0) length(n) '(' || n || ')'
do i = 1 to n
say "In third loop TO" n
leave i
end
/*
The following yields:
Error 26.3: Value of FOR expression in DO instruction must be zero
or a positive whole number; found "2147483648"
*/
do i = 1 for n
say "In fourth loop for" n
leave i
end

exit 0

</code>

--
Arthur T. - ar23hur "at" pobox "dot" com

[Anonymous]

> I plan to open a report of this problem, but I'm having difficulty
> deciding on a pithy, meaningful title. Have you any suggestions?

27 +++ do i = 1 for n
line 27: Invalid whole number

[Rony]

By default Rexx uses nine digits for a number. A whole number therefore cannot be larger than
999999999, which 2**31 is, hence the error.

Here a rexxtry.rex session (using ooRexx but this would not matter for this case):

F:\work\svn\bsf4oorexx\trunk\bsf4oorexx.dev\source_java>rexxtry
REXX-ooRexx_5.0.0(MT)_32-bit 6.05 13 Aug 2021
rexxtry.rex lets you interactively try REXX statements.
Each string is executed when you hit Enter.
Enter 'call tell' for a description of the features.
Go on - try a few... Enter 'exit' to end.
say digits()
9
........................................... rexxtry.rex on WindowsNT
say 2**32
4.2949673E+9
........................................... rexxtry.rex on WindowsNT
say 2**31
2.14748365E+9
........................................... rexxtry.rex on WindowsNT
numeric digits 10
........................................... rexxtry.rex on WindowsNT
say 2**31
2147483648
........................................... rexxtry.rex on WindowsNT
say 2**32
4294967296
........................................... rexxtry.rex on WindowsNT

As you see, once you use ten digits for a number, 2**31 and 2**32 qualify again as whole numbers.

HTH,

---rony

[Rick McGuire]

Even with a higher digits setting, this value is rejected for the FOR argument. This falls into the category of "numbers used directly by REXX" described on page 137 of The REXX Language, second edition. The exprf expression is one of the examples explicitly listed.

Rick

[Arthur T.]

In
Message-ID:<56dc90ab-4168-46f8...@googlegroups.com>,

Rick McGuire <objec...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Even with a higher digits setting, this value is rejected for the FOR argument. This falls into the category of "numbers used directly by REXX" described on page 137 of The REXX Language, second edition. The exprf expression is one of the examples explicitly listed.

Thank you!

I'm glad I asked here before opening a problem. And, yes, TRL2 says
that exprf (FOR operand) can be limited, but doesn't put exprt (TO
operand) in the same category. And that exactly matches the results
of my test code.

WAD even if some of us didn't realize it. I hate to think that I may
have to actually read (or at least skim through) TRL2, but this shows
why I should (have).

[Glenn Knickerbocker]

On Wed, 15 Sep 2021 05:36:51 -0700 (PDT), Rick McGuire wrote:
>> > Error 26.3: Value of FOR expression in DO instruction must be zero
>> > or a positive whole number; found "2147483648"

>Even with a higher digits setting, this value is rejected for the FOR
>argument. This falls into the category of "numbers used directly by
>REXX" described on page 137 of The REXX Language, second edition. The
>exprf expression is one of the examples explicitly listed.

This seems weird when a smaller value of DIGITS() causes smaller numbers
to be rejected, but I see it says that an implementation restriction
*may* apply, and that 9 is the *mininum* length that must be supported.
So Regina is actually supporting a little *more* than required here.
Trying it in ooRexx, I get this error starting right at 1E10.

ŹR