Re: [Caml-list] User-defined equality on types?

[Alain Frisch <frisch@clipper.ens.fr>]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2001, John R Harrison wrote:

> I'd like to suggest allowing the user to define a chosen interpretation
> of the equality symbol, and perhaps the polymorphic orderings too, on
> each new (maybe just abstract) data type. This seems natural in the 
> context of abstract data types with non-canonical representation, giving
> a kind of quotient type. 
[snip]
> Any opinions?

I support this suggestion. The standard equality/ordering/hashing
functions are often adequate for most of the data structures, and it would
be useful to use them and just place a hook on specific types to provide
specialized implementation. It could almost be done with
the "custom" block tag; the problem is that such blocks are not garbage
collected.  What about "custom Caml blocks" ?


-- 
  Alain Frisch

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