Re: [Caml-list] Re: Subtyping structurally-equivalent records, or something like it?

[Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>]

Edgar Friendly <thelema314@gmail.com> writes:

> On 05/04/2010 07:53 AM, Sylvain Le Gall wrote:
>> On 04-05-2010, AUGER Cédric<Cedric.Auger@lri.fr>  wrote:
>>> type momentum = Moment of kinematic
>>>
>>> That is does the constructor introduce an overhead or not?
>>> As there is only one constructor, no overhead should be done in an
>>> optimized compiler.
>>>
>> This is not about optimized compiler in this case but about data
>> representation. Even if you use an optimized compiler (which is not
>> really the case with ocamlopt), you won't change datastructure
>> representation to optimize.
>>
> The OCaml compiler *could* special-case this kind of constructor, but
> as there's the syntax:
>
> type momentum = kinematic
>
> Which produces the non-boxed kinematic values, the authors probably
> decided to follow the maxim "Do what the programmer says" for
> singleton variant types.  The question becomes whether phantom types
> solve this problem sufficiently or do we need another type-level
> construct -
> explicit subtyping relationships.  Forever ago I suggested this to
> achieve a similar goal, and was given yet another solution:
>
> module M : sig
> 	type momentum
> 	val of_kin : kinematic -> momentum
> 	val to_kin : momentum -> kinematic
> end = struct
> 	type momentum = kinematic
> 	let of_kin x = x
> 	let to_kin x = x
> end

I think that can be cut down to:

module M = struct
  type momentum = private kinematic
  let of_kin = %identity
  let to_kin = %identity
end

> Yes, it's a lot of boilerplate for each type, but you only have to
> write it once (per type), and cross-module inlining should give zero
> runtime cost.  If not, use "%identity", and expose it in the
> interface.  This method is along the lines of Anthony's proposal #4.
>
> E.

MfG
        Goswin