Re: [Caml-list] Pattern matching and strings (and a mini-bug in Scanf)

[Alessandro Baretta <alex@baretta.com>]

Remi VANICAT wrote:
> Alessandro Baretta <alex@baretta.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>Pierre Weis wrote:
>>
>>>[...]
>>
>>>I should say that I am reluctant to had a special typing rule for the
>>>new specifier you proposed, when "%[\000-\255]" does perfectly the job
>>>and does not require any addition to the type-checker nor to the
>>>implementation of Scanf.
>>>Pierre Weis
>>
>>Why do you mention the type checker? Is each conversion specifier a
>>special case for the type checker?
> 
> 
> Of course it is :
> 
> # Scanf.scanf "%s %d %i";;
> - : (string -> int -> int -> '_a) -> '_a = <fun>
> 
> to type this, the type checker have to look inside the format and find
> that %s look for a string, %d and %i an int.
> 

I did not make myself clear. Of course, the type checker has
to delve into a format string to figure out how to type
Scanf.sscanf "%s %d %i", but that does not mean that "%s
%[abc] %[^def]" requires three different "special cases" in
the type checker. I haven't read how the typechecker reads
format strings, but I would expect that it should only be
intersted in the *type* of the conversion specifier, as
opposed to how the conversion is implemented. All
conversions specifying integers should be treated uniformly
by the type checker; by the same standards all conversions
specifying strings should be treated in the same way. A "%z"
specifier meaning "everything till the end of input" should
look no different to the type checker than a "%s" or a "%[abc]".

Anyhow, I can live with "%[\000-\255]", but I still think
that a "%z" would be a worthy addition.

Alex

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