[Rd] reference counting bug related to break and next in loops

[Wacek Kusnierczyk]

William Dunlap wrote:
> One of our R users here just showed me the following problem while
> investigating the return value of a while loop.  I added some
> information
> on a similar bug in for loops.  I think he was using 2.9.0
> but I see the same problem on today's development version of 2.10.0
> (svn 48703).
>
> Should the semantics of while and for loops be changed slightly to avoid
> the memory
> buildup that fixing this to reflect the current docs would entail?  S+'s
> loops return nothing useful - that change was made long ago to avoid
> memory buildup resulting from semantics akin the R's present semantics.
>
> Bill Dunlap
> TIBCO Software Inc - Spotfire Division
> wdunlap tibco.com 
>
> --------------------Forwarded (and edited) message
> below-------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
>
>  I think I have found another reference counting bug.
>
> If you type in the following in R you get what I think is the wrong
> result.
>
>   
>> i = 1; y = 1:10; q = while(T) { y[i] = 42; if (i == 8) { break }; i =
>>     
> i + 1; y}; q
>  [1] 42 42 42 42 42 42 42 42  9 10
>
> I had expected  [1] 42 42 42 42 42 42 42  8  9 10 which is what you get
> if you add 0 to y in the last statement in the while loop:
>   

a simplified example may help to get a clear picture:

    i = 1; y = 1:3;
    (while(TRUE) {
       y[i] = 0
       if (i == 2) break
       i = i + 1
       y })
    # 0 0 3

    i = 1; y = 1:3;
    (while(TRUE) {
       y[i] = 0
       if (i == 2) break
       i = i + 1
       y + 0 })
    # 0 2 3

the test on i is done after the assignment to y[i].  when the loop
breaks, y is 0 0 3, and one might expect this to be the final result. 
it looks like the result is the value of y from the previous iteration,
and it does not seem particularly intuitive to me.  (using common sense,
i mean;  an informed expert on the copy-when-scared semantics may have a
different opinion, but why should a casual user ever suspect such magic.) 

anyway, i'd rather expect NULL to be returned.  for the oracle,
?'while', says:

"'for', 'while' and 'repeat' return the value of the last expression
evaluated (or 'NULL' if none was), invisibly. [...]  'if' returns the
value of the expression evaluated, or 'NULL' if none was. [...]  'break'
and 'next' have value 'NULL', although it would be strange to look for a
return value."

when i is 2, i == 2 is TRUE.  hence, if (i == 2) break evaluates to
break.  break evaluates to NULL, breaks the loop, and the return value
should be NULL.  while it is, following the docs, strange to have q =
while(...) ... in the code, the result above is not compliant with the
docs at all -- seems like a plain bug.  there is no reason for while to
return the value of y, be it 0 0 3 or 0 2 3.

one might naively suspect that it is the syntactically last expression
in the body of while that provides the return value, but the docs
explicitly say "the last expression evaluated".  and indeed,

    (while (TRUE) { break; 'foo' })
    # NULL

however,

    i = FALSE
    (while (TRUE) { if (i) break; i = !i; i })
    # TRUE

which again reveals the bug. 

one could suspect that "the last expression evaluated" is actually the
whole body of the while loop;  so in the above, the value of { if (i)
break; i = !i; i } should be returned, even if the loop breaks in the
middle.  hence, the result "should" be TRUE (or maybe FALSE?).  however,

    (while (TRUE) { break; while(TRUE) { 'foo' } })
    # NULL

has no problem with returning NULL -- obviously, so to speak.

it seems to me that the bug is not in reference counting, but in that
the while loop incorrectly returns the value of the *previous* iteration
while executing a break, instead of the break's NULL.

likewise,

    (for (i in 1:2) {
       if (i == 2) break
       i })
    # 1

instead of the specification-promised NULL.


>> 	i = 1; y = 1:10; q = while(T) { y[i] = 42; if (i == 8) { break }; i =
>>     
> i + 1; y + 0}; q
>  [1] 42 42 42 42 42 42 42  8  9 10  
>   



> Also, 
>
>   
>> i = 1; y = 1:10; q = while(T) { y[i] = 42; if (i == 8) { break };
>>     
> i<-i+1 ; if (i<=8&&i>3)next ; cat("Completing iteration", i, "\n"); y};
> q
> Completing iteration 2
> Completing iteration 3
>  [1] 42 42 42 42 42 42 42 42  9 10
>
> but if the last statement in the while loop is y+0 instead of y I get
> the
> expected result:
>
>   
>> i = 1; y = 1:10; q = while(T) { y[i] = 42; if (i == 8) { break };
>>     
> i<-i+1 ; if (i<=8&&i>3)next ; cat("Completing iteration", i, "\n");
> y+0L}; q
> Completing iteration 2
> Completing iteration 3
>  [1] 42 42  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10
>   

> A background to the problem is that in R a while-loop returns the value
> of the last iteration. 

not according to the docs;  the "last expression evaluated". 
specifically, not the value of the last non-break-broken iteration.

vQ