Re: [Caml-list] why the "rec" in "let rec"?

[Neel Krishnaswami <neelk@alum.mit.edu>]

Garry Hodgson writes:
> 
> something i was always curious about:  why do you need to 
> specify the "rec" in a "let rec" function definition?  as opposed
> to, say, having the compiler figure out when a function is recursive?

It's the simplest way of dealing with the interaction of lexical scope
and recursion. Consider the following examples:

  let f = fun x -> (Printf.printf "#"; x) in
  let f x = f x
  in
  f 5

versus

  let f = fun x -> (Printf.printf "#"; x) in
  let rec f x = f x
  in
  f 5
                
The reference to 'f' in the second function body refers to the f
already in scope. The 'rec' keyword is how you tell the compiler to
ignore that and make it a recursive binding.

So the first example prints "#" and return 5. The second loops
indefinitely.

-- 
Neel Krishnaswami
neelk@alum.mit.edu

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