Re: Suggestions

[Pierre Weis <weis@pauillac.inria.fr>]

Continuing the ``where match'' saga ...

> the problem is that "when" is not a binder !

> The "where match" is in fact strictly more general than the when:
>   pat when exp ->
> is equivalent to
>   pat where match exp with true ->
> but the when is weaker because it does not bind any variable.

You're right. In my mind even your ``where'' construct is not general
enough. What you want is the so-called ``continue'' feature of Caml
V3.1: a way to ask the pattern matcher to get out from an already
selected clause (wherever you can be within its expression part).

The continue construct works as this: in a pattern matching like

 | pat -> expr
 | pat' -> expr'
 | ...

a ``continue'' statement within expr will exit from the computation of
expr, and the pattern matching will go on with the next clause
appropriate for pat (presumably pat' -> expr').

Using continue, you can freely mix computation of expr and exits to the rest of
the pattern matching, as in:
 | pat ->
    begin try 
     let x = ... in
     if x > 2 then continue else assoc x l
    with Not_found -> continue end

Furthermore ``continue'' subsumes the ``where match'' you proposed:

 | pat where match expr with pati -> ei

is equivalent to

 | pat -> (match expr with pati -> ei | _ -> continue)

(In fact the implemented ``continue'' statement is a bit more complex:
pattern matchings with continue are named so that you may exit to
another pattern matching from within a more nested one.)

In Caml Light, you may simulate a kind of continue statement, using
exception handling and functionality. This is a bit less efficient and
less readable than a built-in mechanism, but it is acceptable since it
is not so common to need ``continue''...

(
Here is the encoding trick:
Suppose you have a clause pat -> expr that needs a continue statement,
inside a given pattern matching:

 | ...
 | pat -> expr
 | pati -> ei

Then define a Continue exception and an auxiliary function for the
rest of the pattern:

exception Continue;;

let rest = function
 | pati -> ei

Use ``raise Continue'' when you need a continue statement and rewrite
your code as:

 | ...
 | pat as p ->
    begin try expr
    with Continue -> rest p end
 | x -> rest x
)

Pierre Weis
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