Re: [Gretl-devel] built-in functions and namespace issues

Am 24.11.18 um 09:29 schrieb Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti: > On Fri, 23 Nov 2018, Allin Cottrell wrote: > >> * When a function definition is encountered in a regular hansl >> script, we flag an error if it uses the same name as a built-in >> function. This has the implication that scripts that run at time t >> may fail at time t+k if in the meantime a built-in function has been >> added to libgretl, with a name equal to the name of a function in >> the script. Maybe this should be revisited at some point. > > I don't think it should; IMO this is a very sane policy, and we > should commit to it indefinitely, for the sake of consistency. The > most we can do is give the user an error message that is as explicit > as conspicuous as possible, so that fixing the script becomes easy. I, too, think that it's OK. In principle we could offer some kind of promise which name pattern will never be used for a built-in function and thus will be safe forever, but it's probably overkill. Functions aren't added _that_ often. However, I think we should check against all existing function packages whenever a new built-in is added.