[m-dev.] question about warnings for should-be-singleton-but-aren't variables

[Zoltan Somogyi]

On Mon, 09 Dec 2024 05:47:21 +1100 (AEDT), "Zoltan Somogyi" <zoltan.somogyi at runbox.com> wrote:

> The attached diff describes a potential problem with
> how we generate warnings for variables whose names start
> with an underscore, but which occur more than once.
> The new test case in the diff exhibits the issue, and asks
> the question. The language manual does not explicitly say
> what the answer should be either. What do you guys think?

I thought of a way to resolve the issue that is better than either
answer to the question in the attached-later diff. It is to split
the existing --warn-singleton-vars option into two. The new option,
possibly named --warn-non-singleton-vars, would control whether
mmc reports variables whose names start with an underscore,
which says that they *should* be singletons, that actually are not,
while the --warn-singleton vars would new control *only* whether
we report variables whose names do NOT start with an underscore,
but nevertheless are singletons. These two options would be
controllable separately in disable_warning scopes.

Would anyone object to this approach? And does anyone have
a better name than --warn-non-singleton-vars? That name is slightly
misleading, but as far as non-misleading names go, the shortest
I can think of is --warn-should-be-singleton-but-arent-vars,
which is too long.

Zoltan.