NilPy: s * n on a string returns a POINTER, silently

Found 2026-07-20 sweeping NilPy's operators against CPython.

s = "hello"
print(s + " " + "world")   # hello world      correct
print(len(s))              # 5                correct
print(s * 2)               # 8577376          WRONG — CPython: hellohello

Silent. * on a string is a type error in Pascal, but here the string HANDLE is multiplied as an integer and the product printed as a number.

The list form is different and honest: [0] * 3 fails to compile ("len(xs)" then errors), so only the string case is silent.

Why Track A, not N

Checked the file ownership before filing a fix: pyparser.inc owns only the BITWISE and BOOLEAN layers (PyParseBitOr down to PyParseIsCmp). The comparison and arithmetic layers are the shared parser's ParseSimpleExpr / comparison chain in parser.inc:10781, so the node is built — and its semantics chosen — outside Track N's files. The fix belongs there, gated on PyExprMode the way other NilPy-specific behaviour already is.

This is the same boundary that put bug-a-nilpy-floordiv-and-modulo-wrong-for-negatives and bug-a-nilpy-and-or-in-unavailable-in-call-arguments in Track A: NilPy's own precedence chain sits ABOVE the arithmetic, not around it.

Shape

Python's str * int (and int * str) repeats. Either:

• lower it to a pystr_repeat(s, n) pylib function — the no-hook route bytearray, min and max already take, since the operands' types are known at the binop; or
• reject it with a diagnostic, which is still strictly better than a wrong number.

Do the same for the list form ([0] * n, 1 uforth site, currently a clean error) if it is cheap at the same time — it is the idiom for preallocating a slot array.

Priority

p60 rather than higher: 1 uforth site, and the wrong value is a large implausible number rather than a subtly wrong one, so it is likely to be noticed. But it IS silent, which is the category that earns a ticket rather than a note.

Gate

test-nilpy green with the three lines above diffed against CPython + --tier quick + self-host byte-identical + make fpc-check.

Log

• 2026-07-20 — resolved, commit 40758683.