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Subject: weird type behavior
From: Kirill <kirillkh@gmail.com>
To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr
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Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 17:49:08 +0200
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X-Spam: no; 0.00; ocaml:01 foo:01 foo:01 val:01 val:01 polymorphic:01 ints:01 functions:01 int:01 int:01 define:01 functional:02 parameters:02 parameters:02 languages:03 

Hi everyone,

I'm a novice user of OCaml and functional languages in general. While
playing with the interpreter, writing all kinds of functions, I've run
into a behavior that doesn't look quite right to me. Please excuse me,
if it is explained somewhere and I simply haven't gotten there yet.

In the following example, I define a simple function foo that returns
function bar, which, in turn, accepts 2 parameters. The weird part is
that after bar is being called for the first time, its signature changes
from polymorphic types to ints. Right after (foo 3) call it's
  '_a -> '_b -> '_b = <fun>
But after being called, it becomes
  (int -> int) -> int -> int = <fun>


# let foo n =
    let bar f x = x in bar;;
val foo : 'a -> 'b -> 'c -> 'c = <fun>

# let inc x = x + 1;;
val inc : int -> int = <fun>

# let z = foo 3;;
val z : '_a -> '_b -> '_b = <fun>

# z inc 0;;
- : int = 0
# z;;
- : (int -> int) -> int -> int = <fun>


I have also noticed that if foo doesn't accept parameters, everything
works as expected:

# let foo =
    let bar f x = x in bar;;
val foo : 'a -> 'b -> 'b = <fun>
# let inc x = x + 1;;
val inc : int -> int = <fun>
# let z = foo;;
val z : 'a -> 'b -> 'b = <fun>
# z inc 0;;
- : int = 0
# z;;
- : 'a -> 'b -> 'b = <fun>

I have tried this with 3.09.2 and 3.09.3 on X64 Ubuntu.

I have also noticed other things I don't see explanation for, but they
may be connected to this one. Will be grateful for any explanation. 

Thanks,
-Kirill