Re: [Caml-list] deep coercion does not work for some stdlib types

[Jacques Garrigue <garrigue@math.nagoya-u.ac.jp>]

On 2013/02/02, at 5:39, Lukasz Stafiniak <lukstafi@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 9:27 PM, Ashish Agarwal <agarwal1975@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> But for arrays it doesn't work:
>> 
>> # let a = Array.of_list l;;
>> val a : N.t array = [|1; 2; 3|]
>> 
>> # (a :> int array);;
>> Error: Type N.t array is not a subtype of int array
>> 
>> Is this because the array type does not have a variance annotation? If so,
>> why doesn't it?
> 
> You must have heard about the "mistake" of Go having covariant arrays.
> In OCaml, arrays are invariant because they are mutable. After you
> have coerced "let b = (a :> X.t array)", you can modify "a.(0) <- y"
> with a value "y" that is not "X.t".
> 
> It would be great to have a separate type "tuple", supported by
> Pervasives, that differs from "array" only in that it is immutable and
> covariant.

Well, if you do not care too much about performance, you can do it by wrapping
your array in an object or record:

class [+'a] vector (arr : 'a array) = object
  val arr = arr
  method length = Array.length arr
  method get = Array.get arr
  method iter f = Array.iter f arr
end
type p = private int
let coerce x = (x : p vector :> int vector)

or

type +'a vector = {length: int; get: int -> 'a; iter: ('a -> unit) -> unit}
let vector arr = Array.({length=length arr; get=get arr; iter = fun f -> iter f arr})
let coerce x = (x : p vector :> int vector)


Note that the object based approach is slightly weaker because,
while vector is covariant, it is not strongly covariant, as needed for
the relaxed value restriction. This can be fixed by making it abstract.

Jacques Garrigue