Re: [Caml-list] Re: Module type of a structure returned by functor

[rossberg@mpi-sws.org]

Dawid Toton <d0@wp.pl> wrote:
> I've found that I have more fundamental problem. What is the exact
> meaning of the following line?
>
> module type Foo = functor (X:X) -> sig val foo : X.t end
>
> (1) Foo is not a functor, but it is a type of some functors that map
> modules to modules
> (2) Foo is a mapping from modules to module types
>
> Currently I think that it (1) is true and (2) is false. Let me know if
> I'm wrong.

That's right. A construct for (2), sometimes referred to as "parameterized
signatures", does not exist in OCaml directly. However, you can encode it
using a functor with a nested signature in its result:

  module FooOf (X : X) =
  struct
    module type S = sig val foo : X.t end
  end

Now, for example:

  module F (X : X) (Y : FooOf(X).S) = ...

> It means that there is no easy way to get module type of what results
> from functor application. I think that the solution is to separately
> define signature of results of the functor and use "with type" clauses
> to recreate all result module types that are needed.
>
> This is not very bad, but I'm still wondering if "module type of..." of
> 3.12 will provide elegant solution for this.

Interesting, it looks like it may. I wasn't aware that singleton
signatures will be coming in 3.12 - nice.

/Andreas