> I wish the compiler would warn us about things like this...  The patch
> looks correct to me, but I will let Ken and Ulrich take a look. Perhaps
> they'll be able to suggest a more specific name than `length2' ;-).

Howzabout we add -Wshadow to the list of warning compiler switches
for GCC? Something like this (untested for now, just to give an idea
for this discussion)...

-- 
Joel