Re: [Caml-list] exceptions and the polymorphic equality

[Nils Goesche <cartan@cartan.de>]

eijiro_sumii@anet.ne.jp writes:

> > On the other hand, the structural equality (=) when applied to
> > exceptions and constructors is not completely specified, hence
> > unreliable. 
> 
> I see, this makes sense - indeed, exn is not an equality type in SML.
> 
> > You're right, having e <> e' should be desirable. However, in this
> > case you should not test structural equality, since it is very likely
> > the case that e and e' are represented by the same kind of value. You
> > should test identity (==) instead:
> > 
> > # e == e';;
> > - : bool = false
> > 
> > That's what the compiler generates when pattern matching exception
> > values (more precisely it uses == for the exception constructor and
> > regular pattern matching for the rest of the pattern).
> 
> Several people have suggested using == instead of =, but doing so
> seems even more problematic because:
> 
>         Objective Caml version 3.01
> 
> # exception Foo;;
> exception Foo
> # Foo == Foo;;
> - : bool = false
> # 

Hm, strange :-) Apparently, `Foo' is a constant constructor, and it
should work like this:

# type bingo = Bingo | Bongo;;
type bingo = Bingo | Bongo
# Bingo == Bingo;;
- : bool = true

OTOH, we also have

# 2 == 2;;
- : bool = true
# 2.0 == 2.0;;
- : bool = false

So, this still doesn't seem like a bug to me...

Regards,
-- 
Nils Goesche
"Don't ask for whom the <CTRL-G> tolls."

PGP key ID 0x42B32FC9

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