World: r3wp

But that one says its built already so there is still a problem that 
exists with the function.

I'm going to run another test real quick to see if it effects just 
the list datatype by converting to block before the sort

Ahhh - the problem goes away if I convert my list to a block datatype 
before the sort.

So sort is causing the problem when performed on a list datatype

Do you know of any mezzanine functions that utilize sort?

Is there a version 2.76?

2.7.6 rather

Different versions: http://www.rebol.net/builds/031/

Sort scripts: http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/search.r?find=sort&form=yes

Yeah I don't see any hint of a version 2.7.6 in that list but I seen 
in the Rambo database a reference to one problem being fixed in version 
2.7.6.

There is an internal alpha of 2.7.6 that has not been released and 
I don't think RAMBO yet shows all the bugfixes for 2.7.6. Carl doesn't 
want to spend too much time on it, so Maarten is appointed release 
manager for it, as he was with R3 alpha 1.

so does this mean that 2.7.6 may never get released and instead just 
R3?

I hope not :-) I need some of those fixes for R2.

I don't mind the problems as long as they are being fixed for R3.

I have production systems that will not be migrated to R3, so I hope 
they will be fixed.

I don't know the sales stradegy for R3 which is why I'm not currently 
designing TRETBASE around it.  If I knew more I might make the leap 
now but didn't know how long alphas would be operable etc, costs 
of the end product of R3, etc...

it's a dangerous period for relying on R3 stability, because of modules, 
tasks and unicode not being in place yet. some very basic things 
may still change so much that the initial R3 test scripts might not 
work anymore.

Yeah good point.

I wouldn't expect production stability until about a year from now, 
but that doesn't mean we don't get to play with a lot of juicy alphas 
in the mean time. :-)

I actually haven't played with them much - it hasn't yet appealed 
to me.  Maybe I just don't understand everything that is changing.

yeah, it can be a little hard. although a good measure is to try 
the VID3 dialect and compare that with R2 VID. what you can do there 
is basically how much R3 is beyond R2 in capability in almost all 
areas. One thing I love is how each and every single function is 
being visited for functionality enhancements that allows you to for 
example write a loop with FOREACH, that manipulates with the block 
it's traversing in a complex way in just a few lines of code. Many 
things that require 10-20 lines of code in R2 can be done in 3-5 
lines in R3.

Wow that is pretty amazing considering that R2 is very concise already.

Sort bug has now been submitted to RAMBO.

I hope you reduced the report. The bug can be shown with only:
>> sort make list! [1 4 5 6]
== make list! [1 4 end sort]

i probably should have but I submitted what I outputted here and 
pasted it as it was fresh on my mind.

Oh well, it's in there now, that's good.

It's strange what we both get:

>> sort make list! [1 2 3 4]
== make list! [1 2 end 3]
>> sort make list! [1 4 5 6]
== make list! [1 4 end :context!]

weird I got the :context! datatype.

context! and object! are not interchangeble however.

It seems like the memory manager is getting list! nodes from a common 
pool, and then SORT is messing up the rebuilding of the list and 
putting random data in the post-sorted list during the sorting process.

end! is the block end marker, you should never see that. list! is 
bugged, and noone ever used it, that's why it's not even in R3.

When you say that list is buggged in what way?  I would like to know 
what to watch out for when using it.

I thought this was actually mentioned in the docs. I read some place 
once that sorting and some other functions were never meant to be 
used with list!. I think it's in the appendix of the Core documentation 
somewhere.

perhaps it would be cleaner to simply disallow SORT to work on list! 
?

Was just thinking the same thing if that is indeed the case.

Thanks Anton and Graham. My bad. I started checking to see if my 
nested objects were even working (behaving as objects) after I appended 
them (and before saving them). Lo and behold they were so no wonder! 
Thanks for your time and tips.

Maybe it would be a good idea to make SORT work on list! instead, 
even if it needs to be special-cased.

;Is this a bug with list also?

>> list: to-list [1 2]
== make list! [1 2]
>> index? list
== 1
>> remove find list 1
== make list! [2]
>> index? list
** Script Error: Out of range or past end
** Where: halt-view
** Near: index? list
>>

Seem the indexing is not what I expected on that.

gotta find those docs. indexing for list! is not the same as for 
block!

Design difference, not bug. It's not a problem with indexing - you 
just deleted the node that 'list was referring to.

I looked at the docs for it but it still seems like strange behavior.

Ahh I see BrianH.  Thanks.

INSERT for list! behaves like APPEND for block! I think list! was 
made for appending large amounts of data using INSERT much quicker 
than block!

Yes I understand that and that is its strength because it is always 
at tail after an insert.  But what struck me was why it went to out 
of range after the remove of the first item.  But BrianH's statement 
makes sense.

It's an aliasing thing. A list doesn't keep its own list of the words 
that are referring to it, so changes to one reference can affect 
other references in unpredictable (without dataflow analysis) ways.

Strangely enough, my main uses for list! have been the same as yours: 
for database tables. If you use list! then aliased references to 
the list will still be valid when you delete nodes, as long as the 
node you are deleting is not the one you are referencing. This has 
advantages when making indexes, which can be a hash! of such references.

When you keep aliased references to blocks rather than lists, any 
inserts or deletes could invalidate all of the references because 
the offsets could change. Not a problem with lists, since the references 
are pointers, not offsets.

Good info - thanks BrianH.

Slight change of subject but here I  am all happy saving/all  and 
loading my objects and then it hits me: Just what is this "serialized" 
data? How is it different (outside of that fact that it's ascii representation 
is different.) I don't know if I need to know to use it but in case 
I'm ever on TV I want to answer it correctly.