RE: [Caml-list] Pattern matcher no more supposed to warn on non exhaustive patterns ?

["Gregory Morrisett" <jgm@cs.cornell.edu>]

The issue with threads is a bit more troublesome.  Consider:

  let x : (int->int) option ref = ref (Some (fun x -> x));;

  let foo z =
      match z with
        {contents=None} -> 0
      | {contents=Some(f)} -> f(0);

Now suppose I fork two threads:

Thread 1:  foo x
Thread 2:  x := None

And suppose that Thread 1 runs long enough that it does the first
match, so it assumes the contents of x is not of the form None.  
Now Thread 1 gets descheduled, Thread 2 runs, and sets the
contents of x to None.  Then Thread 2 continues with the second
match...

The question is, does Caml core dump because the pattern matcher
assumes that the contents *has* to be a Some(-) in the second
case?  Or does it do the derefence and check atomically?  Or
does it add a default case that raises a Match exception?  

The same thing shows up in SML/NJ with CML.  The problem is that
in the presence of threads, you really shouldn't be able to 
dereference a mutable value in your patterns.

-Greg
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