Re: Strange type error

[Jacques Garrigue <garrigue@kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp>]

From: Claudio Sacerdoti Coen <sacerdot@students.cs.unibo.it>

>  let a.mli be
> 
>   type 'a section_path = { x : int; }
>   and mind_section_path = [ `MIND] section_path
>   type const_section_path = [ `CONST] section_path
> 
>  and b.mli be
> 
>  type 'a section_path = { x : int; }
>  type mind_section_path = [ `MIND] section_path
>  type const_section_path = [ `CONST] section_path
> 
>  b.mli is compiled without problems, but for a.mli I get
> 
>  File "prova.mli", line 3, characters 26-35:
>  This type [ `CONST] should be an instance of type [ `MIND]
> 
>  that seems nonsense to me. Someone could explain the error?

For a long time, the answer was: "this is not a bug, this is a
feature." (cf. this mailing list more than 1 year ago)
That is, in recursive type definitions, as in recursive value
definitions, the polymorphism is only given after a definition block
is finished. As a result, the definition in a.mli actually means:
        type 'a section_path = { x : int } constraint 'a = [ `MIND]
You can see it by doing `ocamlc -i -c a.mli'.

In the current version (upcoming 3.01), this problem is solved:
type definitions are assumed to be polymorphic, and if you want the
above behavior you must explicitly request it. As a result a.mli and
b.mli become equivalent. So we can now assume that this was a bug.

Cheers,

Jacques Garrigue
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacques Garrigue      Kyoto University     garrigue at kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp
		<A HREF=http://wwwfun.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~garrigue/>JG</A>