Re: question regarding substitute* and #t

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Andy Wingo <address@hidden> writes:

>> I wonder why substitute* not simply returns #t?!
>
> There was a proposal to make it return #t!  However then someone pointed
> out that actually instead of making phases return boolean results, we
> should instead signal problems via exceptions, and that drove the shift
> from system / system* to invoke.  In the future world where completion
> means success, it doesn't matter what substitute* returns.

There is also the question what it means for substitute* to fail.  Does
it fail when one of the substitutions couldn’t be performed in one of
the files?  Or does it only fail when no substitutions succeeded?  Or
something in between?

I’m sure we have a bunch of places in package definitions where old
substitions actually no longer apply to current versions of the sources.
Cleaning this up will take quite some time.

(I think that it would be helpful if substitute* failed when any
substitution failed, but this would make some shortcuts impossible.)

--
Ricardo

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