Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 1471421
gawk's PROCINFO["identifiers"] reports wrong type
Last modified: 2017-07-17 10:55:21 EDT
Description of problem: when asking AWK for the type of an array variable, it incorrectly claims that it is untyped. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): gawk-4.1.3-8.fc25.i686 How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1. gawk 'BEGIN { testx["bla"]="foo";testx["bla2"]="foo2";print PROCINFO["identifiers"]["testx"]; split("cul-de-sac",a,"-",seps); print PROCINFO["identifiers"]["a"],PROCINFO["identifiers"]["seps"];}' Actual results: untyped untyped untyped Expected results: array array array Additional info: PROCINFO["identifiers"]["PROCINFO"] correctly reports "array".
Same behavior actually for numbers and strings: % gawk 'BEGIN { x="test"; print PROCINFO["identifiers"]["x"];}' untyped % gawk 'BEGIN { x=5.5; print PROCINFO["identifiers"]["x"];}' untyped
OK I guess it's because "The values indicate what gawk knows about the identifiers after it has finished parsing the program; they are not updated while the program runs." (https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html)
Although I still think it's a bug. In the examples given, the type IS statically known after parsing. Because the respective identifiers are used in only one, unique type of context. 'testx["bla"]="foo"' clearly says that testx is an array, and if there is no conflicting assignment (such as testx = "xyz") afterwards or before, the type must be array. What purpose would PROCINFO have anyway, if it wouldn't handle this basic case well?
Hello Peter, thank you for reporting this. Unfortunately, I'm not part of gawk's upstream, nor I know much about it. You probably know much more than I do, actually... :) Would you be, please, so kind and send your bug report to <bug-gawk@gnu.org>? In case upstream acknowledges this as a bug and fixes it, then I can create a new gawk release for you. (I could report this to upstream on your behalf, but in case they reply I would become just a bottleneck in your communication. If you would write them the same thing you wrote me, it would speed things up much more. Upstream of gawk replies within few days usually. ;)) Thank you for your understanding. Dee'Kej
Reported upstream
(In reply to Peter Backes from comment #5) > Reported upstream Thank you very much! :)