[Caml-list] try ... with and stack overflow

[Diego Olivier Fernandez Pons <Diego.FERNANDEZ_PONS@etu.upmc.fr>]

    Bonjour,

I cannot figure what is puzzling the Caml compiler in some code I
wrote. It seems to be related to the try ... with construction against
tail-recursive optimization. Or am I doing a semantical mistake (that
is to say that I am believing the two codes to be equivalent when they
are not) ?

Some explanations : I first wrote an optimized search procedure (for a
branch and bound) and then wanted to compare it against the naive
version.

It works in the following way :
- goes down the tree by the left branch until reaches a leaf
- if the leaf is a solution, all the inexplorated branches are put in
closures and added to the 'continuation queue'
- if the leaf fails, an exception is raised and the deepest
unexplorated right branch is taken instead (try ... left_branch ...
with Failed -> ... right_branch ...)



exception Failed

type location = Left | Right


(* Optimized depth-first search *)

type 'a goal = Goal of ('a goal list -> 'a * 'a goal list)

let rec solve = function
  | [] -> []
  | Goal g :: tail ->
      try
	let (result, continuations) = g tail in
	  result :: solve continuations
      with Failed -> solve tail

let rec dfs continuations = fun f data level ->
  match level with
    | 0 -> (f data, continuations)
    | n ->
	try
	  let
              right = Goal (fun c -> dfs c f (Right :: data) (n - 1))
          in
	    dfs (right :: continuations) f (Left :: data) (n - 1)
	with Failed -> dfs continuations f (Right :: data) (n - 1)

let make_dfs = fun f n -> Goal (function c -> dfs c f [] n)


The naive version works in the same way but closures are
systematically constructed for both left and right branches.


(* Simple depth-first search *)


type 'a simpleGoal =
  | Result of 'a
  | Closure of ('a simpleGoal list -> 'a simpleGoal list)

let rec simple_solve = function
  | [] -> []
  | Result x :: tail -> x :: simple_solve tail
  | Closure f :: tail ->
      try
	simple_solve (f tail)
      with Failed -> simple_solve tail

let rec simple_dfs continuations = fun f data level ->
  match level with
    | 0 -> Result (f data) :: continuations
    | n ->
 let
   left = Closure (fun c -> simple_dfs c f (Left :: data) (n - 1)) and
   right = Closure (fun c -> simple_dfs c f (Right :: data) (n - 1))
 in
    left :: right :: continuations

let make_simple_dfs = fun f n ->
  Closure (function c -> simple_dfs c f [] n)


Both seem to be working well

let rec print_location = function
  | [] -> ()
  | Left :: tail -> print_location tail ; print_string "Left  "
  | Right :: tail -> print_location tail ; print_string "Right "

let all_fail_trace = function location ->
  print_location location ;
  print_newline();
  raise Failed

# solve [make_dfs all_fail_trace 2];;
Left  Left
Left  Right
Right Left
Right Right
- : '_a list = []

# simple_solve [make_simple_dfs all_fail_trace 2];;
Left  Left
Left  Right
Right Left
Right Right
- : '_a list = []

But the naive version seems to have a tail-recursion problem

# solve [make_dfs (fun loc -> raise Failed) 15];;
- : '_a list = []

# simple_solve [make_simple_dfs (fun loc -> raise Failed) 15];;
Stack overflow during evaluation (looping recursion?).


Then I changed the following code


let rec simple_solve = function
  | [] -> []
  | Result x :: tail -> x :: simple_solve tail
  | Closure f :: tail ->
      try
	simple_solve (f tail)
      with Failed -> simple_solve tail

by

  | Closure f :: tail ->
      simple_solve (try
                        f tail
                    with Failed -> tail)

and this time it worked

# solve [make_dfs (fun loc -> raise Failed) 15];;
- : '_a list = []

# simple_solve [make_simple_dfs (fun loc -> raise Failed) 15];;
- : '_a list = []


    Diego Olivier

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