In the following program we know that valStr.value
assumes the subtype pair
of the generic type t
. Yet when I examine it in poly
the type is shown as being t
. Is there any way I can see in the poly
interpreter that t
has been specialized to pair
?
This is what I get when I run poly
:
> poly
Poly/ML 5.5.2 Release
> use "forum.ml";
signature PAIR =
sig val coord : pair val getFirst : pair -> real type pair end
structure Pair :
sig
val coord : pair
val getFirst : pair -> real
type pair = real * real
end
signature VALUE = sig type t val value : t end
functor createVal (R : PAIR) : VALUE
val extracted = 1.0: real
val main = fn: unit -> unit
structure valStr : VALUE
val it = (): unit
> valStr.value;
val it = (1.0, 2.0): valStr.t
(* I want to see that it is of type "pair" *)
and the code used to produce it is :
(* forum.ml *)
signature PAIR =
sig
type pair
val coord : pair
val getFirst : pair -> real
end
structure Pair =
struct
type pair = real * real
val coord = ((1.0,2.0) : pair)
fun getFirst ((x,y) : pair):real = x
end
signature VALUE =
sig
type t
val value: t
end
functor createVal(R : PAIR) : VALUE =
struct
type t = R.pair
val value = R.coord
end
structure valStr = createVal(Pair)
val extracted = Pair.getFirst valStr.value
fun main() = print (Real.toString extracted)
You can add a type constraint:
> valStr.value: Pair.pair;
val it = (1.0, 2.0): Pair.pair
Poly/ML tries to print the type in a helpful way but it can't guess which will be the most helpful in any particular case when there are multiple equivalent types.