Document behavior of label name reuse. about spec

[binji]

Just tested this with the spec interpreter:

(module
  (export "f" $f)
  (func $f
    (loop $foo $foo
      (block $foo
        (block $foo
          (br $foo))))
))

No error. It seems that the spec interpreter just uses the first label it finds.

[mbebenita]

What about:

(loop $foo $foo
  (br $foo))

Is this a break or continue?

[mbebenita]

If this is the behavior we want, then I guess we should spec the label search order. I feel that relying on search order is kind of error prone.

@mbebenita The loop block label should be the outer label, so it should see the loop repeat label. The binary encoding has no labels here, but you are right that the order should be specified.

[mbebenita]

@JSStats I was under the impression that the loop blocks are just blocks with an additional label. So it effectively has two labels, and they are both outer labels as far as the (br $foo) is concerned. Am I missing something here?

(block $foo
  (br $foo) ;; break
)

(loop $foo %bar
  (br $foo) ;; continue
  (br $bar) ;; break
)

(loop $foo %foo
  (br $foo) ;; continue or break?
)

[kripken]

I'm in favor of disallowing the ambiguous cases (1 or 2 in the first comment).

[binji]

(loop $foo $bar ...)

is sugar for

(block $foo (loop $bar ...))

See https://github.com/WebAssembly/spec/blob/master/ml-proto/README.md#s-expression-syntax.

Testing this in ml-proto:

(module
  (export "f" $f)
  (func $f
    (loop $foo $foo
      (br $foo))
))
(invoke "f")

is an infinite loop.

So the search order is from "outward".

[mbebenita]

@kripken option 2 is consistent with JS semantics, so I'd favor that as well.

[mbebenita]

@binji ah, I see, that makes sense.

@binji Not sure if 'outward' is meaningful. Perhaps note labels are a lexical binding, a stack, and that the lookup chooses the first in the stack, so an inner binding shadows an outer binding. But it's just for the spec wast and perhaps people would rather not have such hazards in tests etc.

[rossberg]

Labels have standard lexical scoping behaviour. That is, they scope over the labelled expression, and can be shadowed within their scope. The loop case is defined by its desugaring.

We could disallow shadowing, but I don't see a strong reason for that. Everything regarding names is not part of the "official" spec semantics anyway.

[kg]

We could disallow shadowing, but I don't see a strong reason for that.

What is the advantage? From my perspective this has disadvantages because it is unusual and mostly creates an opportunity for confusion.

Everything regarding names is not part of the "official" spec semantics anyway.

This doesn't match our design history, and it feels like a semantic trick. In the context of tableswitch and a bunch of cases, the best way to describe the numbering of the br targets for the cases would be labels where the names are arbitrary compiler-assigned numbers.

[rossberg]

On 21 January 2016 at 18:14, Katelyn Gadd [email protected] wrote:

We could disallow shadowing, but I don't see a strong reason for that.

What is the advantage? From my perspective this has disadvantages because
it is unusual and mostly creates an opportunity for confusion.

Allowing shadowing ensures locality and compositionality: without it, you
cannot syntactically insert a piece of code into another piece and expect
it to keep working. At least in general language design, that is a very
useful modularity property. Not saying it's super-important here, but I
also don't see the opposite.

Everything regarding names is not part of the "official" spec semantics

anyway.

This doesn't match our design history,

Not sure why you're saying that. The AST semantics never had names, AFAIR.

and it feels like a semantic trick. In the context of tableswitch and a

bunch of cases, the best way to describe the numbering of the br targets
for the cases would be labels where the names are arbitrary
compiler-assigned numbers.

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#210 (comment).

@rossberg-chromium 'locality and compositionality' seem important for a usable source code. FYI For (module (func $f1 (block $l1 (block $l1 (nop))))) sexp-wasm gives 'redefinition of label "$l1"'!