Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!buengc!art
From: art@buengc.BU.EDU (A. R. Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Control variables in FOR loops
Message-ID: <1770@buengc.BU.EDU>
Date: 22 Dec 88 18:57:39 GMT
References: <1439@csuna.UUCP> <169@m2xenix.UUCP> <1712@buengc.BU.EDU> <170@m2xenix.UUCP>
Reply-To: art@buengc.bu.edu (A. R. Thompson)
Followup-To: comp.lang.pascal
Organization: Boston Univ. Col. of Eng.
Lines: 19

In article <170@m2xenix.UUCP> randy@m2xenix.UUCP (Randy Bush) writes:
>In article <1712@buengc.BU.EDU> art@buengc.bu.edu (A. R. Thompson) writes:
>>In article <169@m2xenix.UUCP> randy@m2xenix.UUCP (Randy Bush) writes:
>>>The interesting, and unexpected, restriction is that it may not be threatened
>>>by use within an enclosed procedure/function.  The following is not legal:
>>
>>If you want to make assigning references to the control variable in a looping
>>statement, you should use either a while statement or a repeat statement.
>>That's what they are for (so to speak).
>
>Please peruse the example again.  There was no assignment to the control
>variable during the dynamic execution of the FOR statement.  In fact, the
>procedure containing the threat is never called, nor is there any code in
>the FOR's statement sequence.

Yes, but there was more to the question than just the example.  The poster
raised a question wrt assignments to the control variable within the body
of the for statement.  Many people I have encountered want to do this.
It's not just wrong, it's downright dangerous.