Homework 8

This is the archived website of SI 413 from the Fall 2012 semester. Feel free to browse around; you may also find more recent offerings at my teaching page.

Use a separate sheet of paper for your answers! Everything should be submitted in one packet, all printed out for me to see.

1 Scope Tree

  1. Draw the scope tree for the following program:
def account(a):
    def withdraw(x):
        if a < x:
            return False
        else:
            a = a - x
            return True
    return withdraw # Notice a function is being returned!
 
var A = account(10)
var B = account(12)
 
print A(11)
print B(11)
  1. Draw the scope tree for the following program:
int x = 10;
int i = 5;
 
int foo(x) {
  if (x == i) {
    return 3;
  }
  else {
    int i = x - 1;
    int j = foo(i);
    return 3 * j;
  }
}
 
cout << foo(3) << endl;

2 Lexical scope

Consider the following SPL code, which we will imagine is lexically scoped:

new counter := lambda start {
  new increment := lambda by {
    start := start + by;
    ret := start;
  };
  ret := increment;
};
new A := counter @ 0;
new B := counter @ 5;
write A@0;
write B@0;
write A@6;

Draw all the frames and links that result after executing this program. See the reading assigned from Unit 6 for exactly how these should be drawn, particularly Section 3.2.3 of SICP.

In particular, every variable name that refers to a function should point to a closure, which is represented by a pair of circles, pointing to the referencing environment and the function definition, respectively. (You do NOT have to write out the complete body of every function.)

3 Pass by what?

Here is a small SPL program with a single function that gets called twice. (Not that it matters, but you may assume lexical scoping here.)

new a := 20;
new b := 10
 
new foo := lambda x {
  x := x + x;
  ret := x * b;
}
 
write foo@a;
write a;
write foo@b;
write b;

Clearly four numbers will get printed by this piece of code. Tell me what those four numbers will be under:

  1. Pass by value
  2. Pass by reference
  3. Pass by value/result

4 Value/result example

In C++, function parameters that are specified with an ampersand, like the a in

void foo(int& a);

are passed by reference. In class, we saw a different kind of parameter passing mode called pass by value/result. Write a small C++ program demonstrating that reference parameters (with ampersands) really are passed by reference and not by value/result. That is, your program should do something different in each of these parameter passing modes.

As always, I want you to come up with your own examples! You can work together on homework assignments, but the examples you turn in should be unique.