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Date:Mon Dec 2 18:27:32 1995 
Subject:Re: reporting pop bugs (and pvars) 
From:A . Sloman 
Volume-ID:951202.07 

> Chris asks:
> > How much code would it break (probably lots, and someone should write a
> > utility to find out) if ``vars'' declarations local to a procedure
> > invented a *new* permanent variable which it then dlocalised? Then the
> > intuition ``"vars" are local to a procedure, aren't they?'' would be
> > more accurately reflected.
>
> My intuition is that very little code would break.

It's a nice idea, but, alas, there are people outside your ken who
regularly write such things as

	vars cucharout, interrupt, prmishap;

I used to do it myself, and still have some old libraries. The format
has a very long history (pop2, pop10, wpop, etc.)

On the other hand I think you are right in saying that this is
relatively infrequent. It's just hard to detect automatically.

> ..The proposed
> difference is merely that a local "vars" would *avoid* making a
> permanent declaration if one already existed.  This would, in fact,
> make broken code start working!

Except in the above cases.

Aaron