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From: Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com>
Organization: Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] "OCaml gives you only monomorphic methods in classes."
Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:27:26 +0000
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X-Spam: no; 0.00; ocaml:01 overloading:01 inference:01 foo:01 foo:01 statically:01 frog:98 wrote:01 caml-list:01 monomorphic:01 int:01 int:01 generics:01 inferred:02 match:02 

On Friday 28 December 2007 23:55:32 Gordon Henriksen wrote:
> Jon, consider the case of Java or C++ method (and function)
> overloading. This form of static dispatch is quite distinct from
> virtual method dispatch, and is indeed at odds with type inference.

I see. Still, the solution seems easy enough. Just treat the overloaded types 
as part of the function name:

  foo(int n)
  foo(float x)
  foo(string s)

becomes:

  foo_int n
  foo_float x
  foo_string s

When you come across:

  foo(a)

you look up the statically inferred type of "a" and just bail if it fails to 
match any of the overloads.

Generics are left alone:

  foo<T>(T x)

becomes:

  foo (x : 'T)

Would that work?

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?e