Bug in variable initialization

[certik]

There are still some bugs in how variable initialization is handled.

from ltypes import i32

def g(x: i32):
 print(x)

x: i32 = 7

def f():
 a: i32 = 5
 x: i32 = 3
 x = 5
 b: i32 = x+1
 g(a*b+3)

f()

It prints:

$ lpython --new-parser a.py && ./a.out 
23
$ PYTHONPATH=src/runtime/ltypes python a.py
33

The solution: unless x is declared as x: Constant[i32] (we currently do not support it, but we could), then any initialization must be assigned to it using Assignment, not as "value" in the Variable_t, because then you can't assign to it later (we should check this in verify). Above x still has 3, not 5. For Constant[i32] you have to assign to it right away, and then you can't change it.

So the above code effectively becomes:

def f():
 a: i32
 x: i32
 b: i32
 a = 5
 x = 3
 x = 5
 b = x+1
 g(a*b+3)

And everything should work.

[czgdp1807]

I think the problem might be due to x being a global variable. I will investigate and send a fix.

[czgdp1807]

Well, first all the variables are declared. So declaration and initialisation of b happens before x = 5 is executed. This is not a bug I think. It is incorrect behaviour for Python. LLVM backend was initially written for Fortran (where you have to declare all the variables together before using them). To fix this, I think we can do an ASR pass where all the initialisations at declarations can be converted to assignments in the body. Then Fortran, Python would behave in the same way. Let me know what you think.

[certik]

So the confusion stems from

 expr? symbolic_value, expr? value, storage_type storage, ttype type,

The value is a compile time value, essentially implying the variable is a constant, so the value is assigned once and never changes.

The symbolic_value is an initial value of the variable, that can change later.

[certik]

I think the bug is in the frontend, assigning the initialization to value instead of symbolic_value.

[certik]

Another condition: the runtime value of symbolic_value must be a compile time constant. 3+3, 3, and constants (we don't have those yet) and expressions using those, are all constants. Everything else is not a constant, and the frontend must generate an Assignment statement instead.

[Smit-create]

This seems to be fixed now:

% lpython expr.py && ./a.out
33
% lpython --new-parser expr.py && ./a.out
33
% PYTHONPATH=$PWD/src/runtime/ltypes python expr.py
33