Re: [Caml-list] recursive module type

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

On 2013/05/04, at 21:23, Michaël Lienhardt <michael.lienhardt@inria.fr> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I would like to define some recursive module type in caml, like
> module type S = sig
> ...
> module Toto(M : S) : sig
>  ...
> end
> end
> 
> More precisely, I'd like to extend the Set module available in the ocaml distribution with a function that convert a set into another set.
> Intuitively, I came up with the following signature S, which is not accepted by ocaml (Error: Unbound module type S):
> 
>  module type S = sig
> 
>    include Set.S
> 
>    module Convert : functor(SetTarget : S) -> sig
>      val convert : (elt -> SetTarget.elt) -> t -> SetTarget.t
>    end
>  end

You first problem is syntactic.
You cannot define recursive signatures, just recursive modules.
But the signature may refer recursively to the module.
So you can attempt to write the following:

module rec M : sig
  module type S = sig  
     include Set.S
     module Convert : functor(SetTarget :M.S) -> sig          
       val convert : (elt -> SetTarget.elt) -> t -> SetTarget.t
     end
   end
end = M;;

unfortunately, this does not work:
Fatal error: exception Env.Recmodule

And this is not surprising, because this would let you indeed define
a recursive signature (i.e. a signature that unfolds infinitely).

Jacques Garrigue