Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfr...@ix.netcom.com> Wrote in message: > On Fri, 04 Apr 2014 10:00:25 -0400, random...@fastmail.us declaimed the > following: > >> >>I can't imagine a language that would work that way. For one, it would >>also imply that passing a value would change the default for future >>calls even for non-mutable types. > > Some early FORTRAN compilers purportedly had problems with, for > example: > > X = 1 > call mutant(1) > Y = 1 > > where > > subroutine mutant(y) > > y = y + 1 > return > > meant that Y now held the value of 2 -- that is, literals were stored in > mutable memory, and since FORTRAN passes by reference, the address of the > literal is passed, and the assignment changed the "constant".
I can confirm that, first hand. In late 60's, CDC 6400, I deliberately wrote code to exploit that. Not for production of course. -- DaveA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
