Skip to content

Fix: allow a ternary or parenthesized expression as a return value, and a parenthesized chain as a ternary condition - #80

Merged
vantreeseba merged 10 commits into
vantreeseba:mainfrom
masquepublishing:fix/ternary-parenthesized-return-values
Jul 8, 2026
Merged

Fix: allow a ternary or parenthesized expression as a return value, and a parenthesized chain as a ternary condition#80
vantreeseba merged 10 commits into
vantreeseba:mainfrom
masquepublishing:fix/ternary-parenthesized-return-values

Conversation

@mallyskies

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Depends on #79 (fix/parenthesized-chain-terms) — based on its tip.

Two related gaps in expression positions that hand-roll their own restricted shape list instead of delegating to the general chain grammar:

  1. return/untyped only accepted $._rhs_expression (plus a couple of chain/subscript alternatives) as their value -- never a bare $.ternary_expression or a $._parenthesized_expression. So return a ? b : c;, return (a ? b : c);, and return (a + b); all hard-errored. Added both as bare choices, mirroring the existing bare $.subscript_expression choice already there.
  2. $._ternary_condition's own "plain chain" alternative used $._rhs_expression for its repeated tail terms (not $._chain_term, which already gained parenthesized-term support in Add check for generic parameter types. #2), and had no head-position alternative for a parenthesized head term at all. So (x >= 0) && (x < 10) ? a : b hard-errored even though the unparenthesized x >= 0 && x < 10 ? a : b worked fine. Fixed both tail (switch to $._chain_term) and head (new repeat1-gated $._parenthesized_expression alternative, mirroring the same pattern already used in $._chain_term / expression for the general case).

Found while verifying #79's parenthesized-chain-term fix against the real file that originally surfaced it: its return (ix!=-1) ? heights[ix] : -1; and a ternary condition built from parenthesized comparison terms were still erroring even after that fix landed.

Verified: 229/229 corpus tests pass (5 new: bare/parenthesized ternary return, parenthesized non-ternary return, and a ternary condition built from parenthesized chain terms).

…mprehensions

Fixes github.com/vantreeseba/issues/60's underlying gap
(a WIP PR attempting the same thing) with a from-scratch implementation
against the Haxe language reference (haxe.org/manual/expression-*.html,
block through inline), not a port of that PR's approach.

`for`, `while`, `do`, `try`, and `catch` were bare placeholder keyword
tokens (`keyword: choice('catch', 'do', 'for', 'try', 'while')`) with no
real grammar rule at all. A statement like `for (i in 0...10) trace(i);`
parsed with NO error node -- but only because `for`, `(i in 0...10)`, and
`trace(i);` happened to each independently satisfy some other, unrelated
statement/expression rule as three disconnected siblings, not because
`for` was actually understood as a loop. Same story for `while`, `do
... while`, and `try ... catch`. This is a "wrong tree, not a broken one"
bug -- has_error-based checks are blind to it, which is exactly why it
went unnoticed this long.

Implemented for real, following the manual directly:

- `for_statement`: `for (binding in iterable) body`, where binding is
  either a plain identifier or a key => value pair (Haxe 4.0+,
  `for (k => v in map)`).
- `while_statement` / `do_while_statement`.
- `try_statement` with repeatable `catch_clause`s, each with an optional
  type annotation (Haxe 4.1+ wildcard catch: `catch (e) { ... }`).
- `conditional_statement` (if/else if/else) rewritten so bodies are
  $.statement instead of $.block -- Haxe's `if (cond) expr;` (no braces)
  is standard, idiomatic syntax that was completely broken here, forcing
  braces on every branch.
- Array comprehensions (`[for (i in 0...10) i * 2]`, `[while (...) ...]`,
  manual: lf-array-comprehension.html), replacing a placeholder rule that
  didn't match real comprehension syntax at all. Supports nesting
  (`for`/`while`/an `if`-filter inside a comprehension body), matching
  real code like `[for (a in 1...11) for (b in 2...4) if (a % b == 0)
  a + "/" + b]`.

All four statement bodies reuse $.statement rather than a separate
braces-only rule, which is what makes braceless bodies work "for free"
without duplicating the block/single-statement logic per construct.

**Found and fixed along the way, once real testing against a large
depot surfaced them:**

- The float literal regex allowed repeated dots (`[\.]+` instead of a
  single `\.`), so `0...10` (an integer immediately followed by the range
  operator -- the single most common shape for a for-loop's iterable) was
  being lexed as ONE malformed float token, "0...10", silently swallowing
  the range operator. Tree-sitter's regex engine has no lookahead, so
  there's no way to keep a bare trailing-dot float (`3.`) valid while
  still telling `0.` apart from `0...`; fixed by requiring at least one
  digit after the dot, which is a real but comparatively rare trade-off
  (a genuine standalone trailing-dot float in real, non-comment/string
  code) against a very common one (every `for (i in 0...N)` loop).
- `range_expression` previously baked `identifier 'in' ...` directly into
  itself -- a workaround from when `for` was unimplemented, using it to
  soak up a for-loop's `(i in 0...10)` content via the same kind of
  accidental-sibling trick. Investigated replacing it with a clean,
  standalone `min...max` rule now that `for_statement` provides its own
  real binding structure, but found (via direct testing, not assumption)
  that a dedicated rule is actually unreachable dead code here: `...` is
  already one of the generic `$.operator` choices, so the existing plain
  operator-chain alternative in `expression` already parses `0...10`,
  `arr.length - 1 ... arr.length + 5`, etc. correctly on its own with no
  dedicated rule at all. Removed rather than left in as dead code.
- `subscript_expression` (`arr[i]`) could appear as a chain's head
  (`arr[i] = x`, fixed in an earlier commit) but not its tail --
  `while (null != m_cache[id]) { ... }` still failed. Fixed by including
  it in `_chain_term`.
- A pre-existing, narrower ambiguity surfaced once control-flow bodies
  became $.statement instead of $.block: a genuinely EMPTY `{}` body
  resolves to an empty $.object (an object-literal expression statement)
  rather than $.block. Investigated at length -- declaring
  `[$.block, $.object]` in `conflicts` is flagged unnecessary by
  tree-sitter's own analysis (it doesn't see this as a real, GLR-forkable
  ambiguity), and neither `prec`/`prec.dynamic` on either rule (tried up
  to prec(1000)) nor an explicit `choice($.block, $.statement)` at the
  body field change the outcome, which suggests table construction is
  merging the two empty-content states before any declared precedence
  would be consulted -- not something fixable from grammar.js alone.
  Left as a documented, narrow limitation (42 files in this depot use a
  genuinely empty control-flow body) rather than blocking the other ~99%
  of this fix on it; non-empty bodies are entirely unaffected.

Verified: full corpus suite, 190/190 (added dedicated corpus files for
conditional_statement braceless bodies, loop statements, try/catch, and
array comprehensions; updated two pre-existing tests to match corrected
behavior -- the old array-comprehension placeholder test's expected
output, and removed a test for the now-unsupported bare trailing-dot
float). Depot-wide sweep of 5,332 real .hx files: 0 regressions, 251
files newly error-free (has_error-based, which undercounts real impact
since many files have multiple independent issues) -- a much clearer
picture from counting the actual new node types recognized:
8,601 for-loops (1,751 files), 1,206 while-loops (502 files), 182
do-while loops (106 files), 400 try-statements / 403 catch-clauses
(222-223 files), 871 array comprehensions (353 files), and 53,288
braceless if-bodies across 3,241 files -- all previously either
disconnected-sibling nonsense or a hard parse error.
…ted node

The while-comprehension test's expected tree still described upstream's
generic call_expression-shaped fallback (upstream has no dedicated
comprehension_while rule). This fork adds one as part of this PR, so
the expected tree should reflect it instead.
A parenthesized expression could previously only ever be an entire
standalone `expression` (the top-level $._parenthesized_expression choice)
-- never one term of a longer operator chain. So `0...(10)`, `a + (b)`,
`(a + b) * c`, `total = (a + b) / 2`, etc. all hard-errored, even though
grouping parentheses in ordinary arithmetic are about as common as it gets.

Found via a depot-wide Haxe parse-error sweep: the minimal repro was
`0...(width*height)` in haxe/src/com/masque/mah/common/ZMap.hx, but testing
plain `a + (b)` confirmed the gap was general, not range-operator-specific.

Two additions, mirroring the existing $.subscript_expression-as-head /
$.subscript_expression-as-tail precedent already in this grammar:

- $._chain_term (a chain's TAIL term) now includes $._parenthesized_expression
  alongside $._rhs_expression and $.subscript_expression.
- `expression` gets a new repeat1-gated alternative,
  seq($._parenthesized_expression, repeat1(seq($.operator, $._chain_term))),
  for a parenthesized sub-expression as a chain's HEAD. repeat1-gated so a
  solo `(a + b)` alone still resolves via the existing standalone
  $._parenthesized_expression choice, not this one.

Verified: 225/225 corpus tests pass (3 new, covering tail position, head
position, and the original range-operator repro). Depot-wide sweep against
the Masque depot, combined with the prior switch-case-without-block fix in
this same session: of 548 files with a fully-destroyed class node, 342
recovered a proper class_declaration node (548 -> 206 remaining severe);
2,840 files still show has_error overall (down from 3,275), the remainder
being further, separate issues -- confirmed one more while verifying this
fix: `return <ternary>;` fails to parse regardless of parens, and a ternary
used as a term inside a larger chain (e.g. string concatenation) has the
same "not includable as a chain term" gap this fix addresses for
parenthesized expressions specifically. Not fixed here -- flagged as a
separate follow-up.
a parenthesized chain as a ternary condition

Two related gaps in expression positions that hand-roll their own
restricted shape list instead of delegating to the general chain grammar:

1. `return`/`untyped` only accepted $._rhs_expression (plus a couple of
   chain/subscript alternatives) as their value -- never a bare
   $.ternary_expression or a $._parenthesized_expression. So
   `return a ? b : c;`, `return (a ? b : c);`, and `return (a + b);` all
   hard-errored. Added both as bare choices, mirroring the existing bare
   $.subscript_expression choice already there.

2. $._ternary_condition's own "plain chain" alternative used
   $._rhs_expression for its repeated tail terms (not $._chain_term, which
   already gained parenthesized-term support in the prior commit), and had
   no head-position alternative for a parenthesized head term at all. So
   `(x >= 0) && (x < 10) ? a : b` hard-errored even though the
   unparenthesized `x >= 0 && x < 10 ? a : b` worked fine. Fixed both
   tail (switch to $._chain_term) and head (new repeat1-gated
   $._parenthesized_expression alternative, mirroring the same pattern
   already used in $._chain_term / `expression` for the general case).

Found while verifying the prior commit's parenthesized-chain-term fix
against the real file that originally surfaced it
(haxe/src/com/masque/mah/common/ZMap.hx): its `return (ix!=-1) ?
heights[ix] : -1;` (line 162) and `trace(... ((yTop + y >= 0) && (yTop + y
< 10) ? " " : "") ...)` (line 210) were still erroring even after that fix
landed.

Verified: 229/229 corpus tests pass (5 new: bare/parenthesized ternary
return, parenthesized non-ternary return, and a ternary condition built
from parenthesized chain terms). ZMap.hx -- the file that surfaced bugs 3,
4, and 5 across this session -- now parses with ZERO errors. Depot-wide
sweep: files with a fully-destroyed class node dropped from 206 (after the
prior commit) to 169; cumulative from session start (548), a 69%
reduction. Same graphify test suite baseline before and after (471
pre-existing failures, unrelated -- missing optional tree-sitter grammar
packages in this environment).
@mallyskies mallyskies changed the title Fix/ternary parenthesized return values Fix: allow a ternary or parenthesized expression as a return value, and a parenthesized chain as a ternary condition Jul 8, 2026
… additions

Dropped entirely during this branch's original conflict resolution
along with a redundant, already-upstream comment it was bundled
with -- the code was never affected, only the explanation.
@vantreeseba
vantreeseba merged commit 8152bcc into vantreeseba:main Jul 8, 2026
1 check passed
@mallyskies

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor Author

Thanks!

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

2 participants