ZScript ignores expressions on left side of a static call

[Gutawer]

Example code:

Code: Select all

class T {
    int mem;
    T modify() {
        mem += 1;
        return self;
    }
    static void doit() {
        Console.printf("hi");
    }
}
class Whatever : Actor {
    override void tick() {
        let x = new("T");
        x.modify().doit();
        Console.printf("%d", x.mem);
    }
}

Expected behaviour here is that hi and then 1 is printed, but because doit is a static function, it doesn't require a self pointer, and therefore x.modify() never has code emitted. So it prints hi and then 0 instead.
Another example is that:

Code: Select all

T x = NULL;
x.doit();

Causes no null pointer problems, because x never gets null checked - although this case is more debatable since languages like Java behave the same here.

[Graf Zahl]

How about "Don't do that?" I'd consider that undefined behavior in the best of cases. The problem here is that the expression gets thrown out long before it gets evaluated

[Gutawer]

I completely agree, but in that case, shouldn't it be a compiler error? That's precedented by languages like C#, which only allow calling of static methods using the type name, apart from the one exception of calling it without any prefix (i.e. doSomething() instead of self.doSomething()).