Re: [OpenBIOS] [PATCH 7/10] Apple local variables implementation in Forth

[Programmingkid]

On Aug 15, 2011, at 11:01 AM, [e-mail] wrote:
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:03:29 +0100
> From: Mark Cave-Ayland 
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: [OpenBIOS] [PATCH 7/10] Apple local variables
>    implementation in	Forth
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> On 10/08/11 16:43, William Hahne wrote:
> > Very interesting. I think this needs someone with quite strong
> >    Forth-fu (Stefan) to review this one. Also I can't see any related
> >    documentation with this patch related to locals support?
> >
> > This is an Apple specific thing. See
> > http://www.openfirmware.info/How_Local_Variables_in_Forth_Work_---_Using_App...
>
> Right I understand this, but I'm fairly sure there is an official spec 
> for Forth local variables somewhere. For something to be committed, I'd 
> expect the commit reference to contain a link to the source 
> specification and comments in the code giving an indication as to what 
> the level of implementation actually is (I absolutely understand that it 
> can be impractical to implement everything within the time available).
>
> ATB,
>
> Mark.

There doesn't appear to be any official specification to local variables in Forth. From what I remember, the very creator of Forth was against them. It looks like the only way to understand Apple's local variables support is to see how their own code behaves in OpenFirmware. I have found suggestions on how to add local variables support to forth, but never any thing "official".