From: Nobuyoshi Nakada <nobu@...>
Date: 2006-11-10T15:33:02+09:00
Subject: Re: [ ruby-Bugs-6583 ] self-referential constants

Hi,

At Thu, 9 Nov 2006 23:43:53 +0900,
Erik Hollensbe (erikh) wrote in [ruby-core:09500]:
> Honestly, I'm not sure where you'd like to classify this.

A bug in the code which makes such references.

> It could easily fall under "won't fix", but I figured it's worth
> alerting to anyways.

It should be fixed, but not in ruby.


> given this code:

  a = []
  a << a

In any programing languages which can deal with references, you can
write similar code.  Recursive reference could cause infinite
recursive call easily.  I don't consider this should be prohibited by
the language.  It's upto the (your) design.

> Blew the stack limit trying to navigate a namespace similar to
> this. I think this is a bug because I can't fathom having a constant
> that's self-referential, but it's obviously an indication of a poor
> design decision on the part of the person who wrote said namespace
> structure (which in this case, would be me).

Traversal framework would be nice, like the way used in
Object#inspect, but more generic.

-- 
Nobu Nakada