Re: Patch for ice-9/format.scm (~&)

[Marius Vollmer]

Matthias Koeppe <address@hidden> writes:

> I think that it is a bad idea.  Format should not carry global state.

Hmm, yes, I can see your point.  It's really a question of how we want
format to fail when the port has no column information, but the
formatting requires it.

I think we agree that it should "just work" with one call to format.
That is, format must maintain its own column count (which will
hopefully be in sync with the column count of the port, if it has
one).

Between two calls to format, without a port that maintains a column
count, it can not work in general.  Should we want it to work when the
same port is used, and fail mysteriously when the port is switched; or
should we allow it to fail even when the port stays the same from call
to call, giving less cryptic behaviour.  I don't know.  Is it a
important decision?  Beats me as well.  What is probably worse is that
format is not thread safe, as it is.

> Would you also commit the related test-suite additions I posted
> recently?

The papers... :-/