The Break Loop

Spend any amount of time in GAP, and eventually you will hit the break loop. This is the message GAP prints when code breaks. This can happen for many reasons, but the most common reason is giving a function invalid arguments. Here is an example:

gap> Intersection(1,2);
Error, no method found! For debugging hints type ?Recovery from NoMethodFound
Error, no 1st choice method found for Intersection2(1, 2) called from
Intersection2( I, D ) at /Users/caj/reps/gap/gap/lib/coll.gi:2479 called from
<function "Intersection">( <arguments> )
 called from read-eval loop at line 1 of *stdin*
you can 'quit;' to quit to outer loop, or
you can 'return;' to continue

The break loop acts like the debugger in most other languages. So, what can we do once we are here?

Escaping the break loop

If you just want to get out of the break loop, either type quit; or press ctrl+d.

Break loops will often say you can 'return;' to continue, or sometimes tell you that you can return a new value, to fix up the broken computation. My advice is to ignore these choices. They are rarely useful, and a good way to end up with further break loops, incorrect answers, or even crashing GAP! Here is an example of returning a replacement value.

gap> Print(10/0);
Error, Rational operations: <divisor> must not be zero
not in any function at *stdin*:1
you can replace <divisor> via 'return <divisor>;'
brk> return 2;
5

and here is an example of crashing GAP

gap> STRING_SINTLIST(42);
Error, <val> must be a plain list or range, not a integer)
not in any function at *stdin*:2
you can replace <val> via 'return <val>;'
brk> return 42;
fish: 'gap' terminated by signal SIGSEGV (Address boundary error)

Exploring what went wrong

Let’s use the break loop to understand what went wrong. We will begin with the general break loop, and also the extra methods when provided when the break loop is caused by NoMethodFound (the most common type of break loop).

Let’s start with some silly code. If you want to follow along, save this to a file test.g and use Read("test.g") to read it in (so line numbers will be set correctly).

mult := function(x,y)
  local i;
  i := x * y;
  return i;
end;

f := function(a,b)
  local i,j;
  i := mult(a,b);
  j := mult(a,-1);
  return i * j;
end;

Now, let’s call our function.

gap> f((1,2),(3,4));
Error, no method found! For debugging hints type ?Recovery from NoMethodFound
Error, no 1st choice method found for `*' on 2 arguments called from
x * y at test.g:3 called from
mult( a, -1 ) at test.g:10 called from
<function "f">( <arguments> )
 called from read-eval loop at line 16 of *stdin*
you can 'quit;' to quit to outer loop, or
you can 'return;' to continue
brk>

From this, we can already see what went wrong:

We tried to execute (1,2) * -1
The line which caused the problem was line 3, x * y.
We ran that code by performing mult(a,-1) on line 10.
We ran that code by running f, which we run from *stdin*, which represents the user typing into GAP.

From the break loop we can execute any normal GAP code. We can see the value of variables in the function mult. If we try to read a variable without a value, we get a slightly scary message, which tells us that i has not got a value yet.

brk> x;
(1,2)
brk> y;
-1
brk> i;
Error, Variable: <debug-variable-0-3> must have a value in
  <compiled or corrupted statement>  called from
x * y at /Users/caj/temp/t.g:3 called from
mult( a, -1 ) at /Users/caj/temp/t.g:10 called from
<function "f">( <arguments> )
 called from read-eval loop at line 3 of *errin*

We can also get the value of variables from functions higher up the stack:

brk> a;
(1,2)
brk> b;
(3,4)

However, how can we get access to the i from f? To do this, we use UpEnv and DownEnv. These allow us to step up and down through the functions which have been called, and read their variables.

brk> DownEnv();
brk> DownEnv();
brk> i;
(1,2)(3,4)

No Method Found

The first line of our error loop is No Method Found. There is extra support in GAP to help understand why GAP failed to find a method call. We will describe them each, then give an example.

ShowArguments shows the arguments to the function
ShowDetails gives some general information about the function call
ShowMethods shows all methods which were considered, and why they were rejected. This can often be a very long list! The argument to this function sets how verbose the function is (5 displays the most information).

brk> ShowArguments();
[ (1,2), -1 ]
brk> ShowDetails();
--------------------------------------------
Information about a `No method found'-error:
--------------------------------------------
Operation           : *
Number of Arguments : 2
Operation traced    : false
IsConstructor       : false
Choice              : 1st
brk> ShowMethods(5);
#I  Searching Method for * with 2 arguments:
#I  Total: 246 entries
#I  Method 1: ``*: additive element with zero * zero integer'', value: 1*SUM_FLAGS+24
#I   - 1st argument needs [ "IsNearAdditiveElementWithZero" ]
#I   - 2nd argument needs [ "IsZeroCyc" ]
#I  Method 2: ``*: zero integer * additive element with zero'', value: 1*SUM_FLAGS+24
#I   - 1st argument needs [ "IsInt", "IsZeroCyc" ]
....

Finally, we should exit the loop. The best idea is to press ctrl+d, or type quit;. If we try typing return;, we get the following, which shows GAP trying to recover, but finding is has no idea what to do with x * y (that’s what the no method returned is referring to).

Error, no method returned in
  i := x * y; at test.g:3 called from
mult( a, -1 ) at test.g:10 called from
<function "f">( <arguments> )
 called from read-eval loop at *stdin*:2