[mercury-users] Problem with state variable

[Mark Brown]

On 20-Jun-2006, Nicolas Pelletier <nicolas.pelletier3 at free.fr> wrote:
> <valery at freesurf.fr> writes:
> 
> > BTW, the examples in section 2.13.5 of the reference manual have typos
> > ("is Det" instead of "is det") ; this should be fixed because the
> > resulting error message is quite puzzling for a newcomer ;)
> 
> You  probably read too quickly:   the text in  the page  (at least for
> 0.12.2) states  that Det is a syntactic  variable that  stands for any
> determinism (e.g. det,  multi, nondet, ...),  just as Goal stands  for
> any goal, etc...

Yes, Det and Goal are meta-variables.  This is the case in the latest
versions, too.  Possibly we could change the typeface used for these
variables so that it is clearer that they are not program variables
(or we could change 'Det' to 'Detism' or something like that).

> 
> But I agree  with you, being a newcomer  myself, that improving  error
> messages would make life easier for newbie-debugging :-)

Generally speaking, we think improving error messages is important too.
If you find an error message that is misleading or confusing, then please
post a code snippet and the resulting error message.  We will then be in
a position to improve it (if possible) or at least explain why it is the
way it is.

Cheers,
Mark.

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