Re: typing of a class

["thierry BRAVIER" <thierry.bravier@dassault-aviation.fr>]

Dear ocamlers,

Xavier Leroy a écrit:

> You can write your example just like in Java, by 1- making the
> instance variable mutable, and 2- using an option type to play the
> role of Java's null pointers.  You'd get:
>
> class a arg = object(self)
>     val mutable ob = (None : b option)
>     initializer ob <- Some(arg self)
>   end;;
>
> It's not pretty, but that's exactly what's going on "under the hood"
> in the equivalent Java code.
>
> - Xavier Leroy

An alternative technique I often use is

let not_ready () = failwith "not ready"

class a arg  = object (self)
  val mutable ob = not_ready
  initializer let it = arg self in ob <- (fun () -> it)
  method private ob = ob ()
end

the advantage is that it is not necessary anymore to match ob with Some x;
the drawback is that 'ob' value must now be accessed as 'ob ()'.
A workaround is to introduce method ob and type 'self#ob'.

Of course, field ob must not be accessed during (arg self) computation :-(

Cheers.