Displaying list gives numbers (reference address?) not names

Authoring Inform 7
1

I thought I was doing something simple, but ran into a problem I have never seen before. If I do not pre-populate a list, the list appears to hold references to a noun rather than the noun itself (I have probably totally mis-diagnosed that, but…). My question is am I doing something wrong or is this a real issue?

The snippet below demonstrates the issue.

[code]The player has a list of things called theListFail.
theListFail of player is usually {}.
The player has a list of things called theListSuccess.
theListSuccess of player is usually {}.

understand “tweet [something]” as tweeting.
tweeting is an action applying to one thing.
carry out tweeting:
add noun to theListFail of the player;
say “[theListFail of player] tweeted (listing fails).”;
add noun to theListSuccess of the player;
say “[theListSuccess of player] tweeted (listing succeeds).”;

Hall is a room.

hat is a thing. hat is in Hall.
coat is a thing. coat is in Hall.

[this makes it work]
theListSuccess of the player is {hat}.
when play begins:
now theListSuccess of the player is {}.

test me with “tweet hat / tweet coat”[/code]

Output

Hall
You can see hat and coat here.

test me
(Testing.)

[1] tweet hat
582607 tweeted (listing fails).
hat tweeted (listing succeeds).

[2] tweet coat
582607 and 582639 tweeted (listing fails).
hat and coat tweeted (listing succeeds).

2

This is a real bug. You can work around it by copying the list to a temporary value before printing it; the temporary list will have the right type.

carry out tweeting:
	add noun to theListFail of the player;	
	let L be theListFail of the player;
	say "[L] tweeted (listing fails).";
3

The problem also goes away if you don’t explicitly define the initial values as {}. (The initial value of a list is {} by default, so you don’t have to say that.)

4

Thank you! Not initializing is my preferred solution in this case.

5

Thanks for confirming that, zarf. Is it already in Mantis? If it isn’t, Emily seems to think it merits being there.