Re: [Caml-list] Frustrated Beginner

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Tue, Dec 23, 2003 at 11:11:19AM -0500, Brian Hurt wrote:
> > My biggest source of problems seems to be the syntax. I'm totally
> > confused as far as ; vs ;; vs nothing, when to use ( ), and things of
> > the like. 
> 
> This took some rethinking on my part as well.  The trick is to remember
> that ';' is an operator, like '+' and '.' are.  Actually, the best
> comparison is with the comma operator in C.  If the type of '+' is int ->
> int -> int ('+' takes two int parameters and returns an int), then the
> type of the ';' operator is unit -> 'a -> 'a (or more correctly, 'a -> 'b
> -> 'b).  One you start thinking of ';' as an operator and not a statement
> seperator, it becomes more obvious that an ocaml function body is simply a
> single expression, and not a series of statements.  ';;' is more close to
> what ';' in most languages mean- it's what ends an expression.

Mmm, not really convinced. For me ;, is a shortcut for :

  let () = ... in

Actually, i believe that both constructs result in the exact same code.

That said, i guess it would not really help someone coming from the
imperative world, and not used to the let ... = ... in construct.

Friendly,

Sven Luther

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