Re: [Caml-list] Some/None

[Oliver Bandel <oliver@first.in-berlin.de>]

On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Markus Mottl wrote:

> Oliver Bandel schrieb am Mittwoch, den 24. April 2002:
> > I have not found any description in the
> > Ref-Manual (for 3.01).
> 
> This type is implicitly defined in the "Pervasives"-module as follows:
> 
>   type 'a option = None | Some of 'a
> 
> As the name indicates, you can use it to describe optional values, i.e.
> you either have "Some value" or you have "None". It has a similar purpose
> as NULL-pointers in C, but with the difference that it is perfectly safe
> to handle.

OK, I see the advantage here: No coredump-problems like in C.

[...]
>   match maybe_data with
>   | Some data ->  (* do something with "data" *)
>   | None ->       (* handle case when no data available *)
> 
> There is no way to accidently access "maybe_data" as if it were "Some
> data" even though it is actually "None" - a very common programming
> mistake in C.

OK, looks like the problem with Unix.ENOENT.

> 
> The option type is really just an ordinary algebraic datatype, which is
> useful enough to deserve being defined in the standard library.

OK.

Ciao,
   Oliver

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