Hi,
sorry for disagreeing with you:
not silly.
Ladislav
>
> Hi Elan,
>
> I think you've got us all mystified. You said to Joel:
>
> >You also quote excerpts that demonstrate the use of the verb "to refer"
in
> >a context where something is being referred to. This class of quotes does
> >not make any statement about WHAT IS DOING the referring. What use are
> >quotes that demonstrate that values can be referred to, even though they
> >are not words? I never claimed that values being referred to must be
words.
> >I said that only words are references, and only words can be
dereferenced:
> >>> help get
> >Gets the value of a word.
> >Arguments:
> > word -- Word to get (any-word)
> >Refinements:
> > /any -- Allows any type of value, even unset.
>
> I can't for the life of me see how the help for GET says anything about
the
> technical meaning of the word of the term "refer" or "reference", given
that
> the word isn't used at all. Then when you go on to prove that string
values
> cannot refer by showing that strings cannot be used as an argument to GET,
> my confusion is compounded many-fold. Where does it say that only words
can
> be dereferenced? I haven't even seen the term "dereference" in the
> documentation.
>
>
> Maybe this will help me understand what you're thinking. How do you
explain
> what happens here?
>
> >> string: "abcdefghij"
> == "abcdefghij"
> >> b: [] loop 5 [append b string string: next string]
> == "fghij"
> >> b
> == ["abcdefghij" "bcdefghij" "cdefghij" "defghij" "efghij"]
> >> unset 'string
> >> remove first b
> == "bcdefghij"
> >> b
> == ["bcdefghij" "cdefghij" "defghij" "efghij" "fghij"]
>
>
> Here's an interesting use of the term "reference" from the
> User's Guide 2.2.0 [DRAFT 2] (sersearch.html)
>
>
> Search Constraints
>
> The /part refinement takes one argument, a range to search.
> This can be a numeric range, or series. When a series is
> used, find/part uses the count of elements between the
> current index of the search series and the current index of
> the series argument as the range to constrain to. The
> series used as the range argument must reference the same
> series that's being searched.
>
> You'll see that a "series" is said to reference a "series" - not terribly
> clear wording, but given that they haven't had time to fully consider
Joel's
> proposals I'd say it's a forgivable lapse.
>
> The behavior described here may be illustrated as follows:
>
> >> a: "this is a string to be searched"
> == "this is a string to be searched"
> >> find a "string"
> == "string to be searched"
> >> find a "search"
> == "searched"
> >> find/part a "string" find a "search"
> == "string to be searched"
> >> find/part a "search" find a "string"
> == none
>
> In the final statement here,
>
> find a "string"
>
> returns a reference to A which constrains the find/part to a portion of A
> which doesn't include the substring "search"
>
> Here's another example, from sercopy.html:
>
> Copying Embedded Series With the /deep Refinement
>
> The /deep refinement forces copy to copy all series values
> within a block.
>
> When copying series values in a block, the reference to the
> series is copied, not the series itself. Modifications to
> series in a copied block will modify the series in the copy.
>
> It implies quite clearly that references can exist within a block.
>
> BTW, you may have spotted Joel's solution to my puzzle, which I confess is
a
> silly variation of one of Ladislav's puzzles.
>
> See you,
> Eric
>
>
>
