Re: [Caml-list] generic functions

[Richard Jones <rich@annexia.org>]

On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 02:19:29PM +0100, wiedergaenger@fastmail.fm wrote:
> I just got from LISP to OCaml, and wondered if there is an equivalent of
> generic functions from LISP (CLOS) in OCaml. In the Common Lisp Object
> System methods don't belong to certain objects/classes. They are just
> function specializing on the argument types. So basically I want to
> write something like:
> 
> let foo (x : int) = x*x;;
> let foo (x : float) = x*.x;;
> 
> This, obviously, will not work since foo is just redefined by the second
> statement. One would think, that having methods not being belonging to
> objects/classes, is rather pointless. Well 95% of the time, there is no
> necessity for that. But in the other 5%, it is really helpful. 

The general solution is GCaml
(http://pauillac.inria.fr/~furuse/generics/README.gcaml) which is not
part of OCaml core.

Rich.

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