Re: [Caml-list] Question on writing efficient Ocaml.

[Martin Jambon <martin.jambon@ens-lyon.org>]

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On Fri, 5 Jan 2007, brogoff wrote:

> On Fri, 5 Jan 2007, Nathaniel Gray wrote:
>> On 12/29/06, Mattias Engdegård <mattias@virtutech.se> wrote:
>>> Is there a reason for this? To my innocent eyes, code like
>>>
>>>   type length = Length of int
>>>
>>> looks quite reasonable and could be useful at times.
>>
>> I agree.  Sadly, the ocaml devs don't.
>>
>> http://caml.inria.fr/mantis/view.php?id=3978
>>
>> As Xavier points out, one can use modules to hide basic types, but
>> this is pretty clumsy in practice.  There's rumored to be a solution
>> using phantom types, but my attempts don't work:
>
> You need to use modules to make phantom types work. Something like this
>
> module type BOINK =
>  sig
>    type 'a t
>    val inj : int -> 'a t
>    val prj : 'a t -> int
>    val plus : 'a t -> 'a t -> 'a t
>  end;;
>
> module Boink : BOINK =
>  struct
>    type 'a t = int
>    let inj n = n
>    let prj t = t
>    let plus x y = x + y
>  end;;
>
> let f : string Boink.t = inj 20;;
> let g : int Boink.t = inj 30;;
>
> Boink.plus f g;;
>
> I didn't compile that, but you get the idea...

In case anyone finds it useful, I have this code which is ready to use
(copy the files it into your project):

   http://martin.jambon.free.fr/ocaml.html#opaque

It works only for strings and ints.
You can write:

open Opaque
let x : [`Year] int_t = int_t 2007
let next_year x : [`Year] int_t = int_t (t_int x + 1)

It gives you:
val x : [ `Year ] Opaque.int_t
val next_year : 'a Opaque.int_t -> [ `Year ] Opaque.int_t

Note that we need one more type annotation if we want to get the 
following signature:
val next_year : [ `Year ] Opaque.int_t -> [ `Year ] Opaque.int_t

or we can just use "successor" which is equivalent to "succ":
val successor : 'a Opaque.int_t -> 'a Opaque.int_t


As you can see, things can get pretty ugly, but I found this technique 
useful to avoid confusion between identifiers that identify different 
types of objects. Not in my average "hello world" script.


Martin

--
Martin Jambon
http://martin.jambon.free.fr