How can I check if a function finishes or not?

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8 years ago

Hello. I would like to see if a function finishes or not. For example, this passed through

`1`	`while` `true` `do` `wait()` `end`

would return false, because it never finishes. But this

`1`	`print("hello")`

would return true, because it does finish. Any ideas?

Not sure you can. Why would you need to? You can always spawn() a function so that even if it never does end, the script could still continue. OldPalHappy 1477 — 8y

I'm making a Script Builder place, and I want the player to know their script won't finish and ask if they still want to execute it. This is a highly demanded feature people have asked for. Kampfkarren 215 — 8y

It can be done in Haskell, which is a functional programming language. NotInventedHere 158 — 8y

" I want the player to know their script won't finish" Infinite loops are usually not an error but a standard practice in all games to keep things moving. There's no need for that. cabbler 1942 — 8y

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But sometimes a player doesn't intend to. That's why they asked me to create this feature to warn them. Kampfkarren 215 — 8y

I can only think of possible ways to be if you can scan the code and detect if a while loop or any loop that wont end is being used. Like if a condition will never be met by searching for key words, don't know if this helps you though. alphawolvess 1784 — 8y

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but this is impossible. This is a variation of the infamous 'Halting Problem' by Alan Turing, the father of theoretical computer science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem duckwit 1404 — 8y

One way to understand it in this context is thus: in the general case, you can only check if a loop terminates by running the loop. But if the loop doesn't terminate, then neither will the program which is trying to check if it terminates. duckwit 1404 — 8y

How can I check if a function finishes or not?

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