[MLton] cvs commit: major improvements to -show-basis

Matthew Fluet fluet@cs.cornell.edu
Thu, 12 Feb 2004 09:38:22 -0500 (EST)


>   Please try this out, both for the basis library and for user programs
>   and send bug reports and suggestions for improvement.

Abstract types in signatures are displayed as type equalities:

  signature ARRAY2 =
     sig
        type 'a array = 'a array
        ...
     end

I'm confused by the "= 'a array"; it seems to suggest a type equality with
the top-level array, but that is clearly incorrect.  I'd prefer to see

  signature ARRAY2 =
     sig
        eqtype 'a array
     end


"Bad defaults" for equivalent types:

signature BIN_IO =
   sig
      type elem = BinIO.elem
      type instream = instream
      type outstream = outstream
      type vector = BinIO.vector
      ...
      structure StreamIO: STREAM_IO
                          where type elem = BinIO.elem
                          where type instream = StreamIO.instream
                          where type out_pos = StreamIO.out_pos
                          where type outstream = StreamIO.outstream
                          where type pos = StreamIO.pos
                          where type reader = StreamIO.reader
                          where type vector = BinIO.vector
                          where type writer = StreamIO.writer
   end

Note that basis-library/io/bin-io.sig defines BIN_IO as:
signature BIN_IO =
   sig
      structure StreamIO: BIN_STREAM_IO

      type elem = StreamIO.elem
      type instream
      type outstream
      type vector = StreamIO.vector
      ...
   end
and basis-library/io/bin-stream-io.sig defines BIN_STREAM_IO as
signature BIN_STREAM_IO =
   STREAM_IO
   where type elem = Word8Vector.elem
   where type vector = Word8Vector.vector

So, it's rather confusing to see BinIO.elem and BinIO.vector appearing in
the signature for BIN_IO.  Also, the issue with abstract types leads to
further confusion.

The "bad defaults" leads to a very odd BYTE signature:
signature BYTE =
   sig
      val byteToChar: BinIO.elem -> char
      val bytesToString: BinIO.vector -> string
      val charToByte: char -> BinIO.elem
      val packString: (BinPrimIO.array * int * substring) -> unit
      val stringToBytes: string -> BinIO.vector
      val unpackString: BinPrimIO.array_slice -> string
      val unpackStringVec: BinPrimIO.vector_slice -> string
   end

Implementation type of Socket.SOCK.sock_type is exposed:
signature GENERIC_SOCK =
   sig
      val socket: (NetHostDB.addr_family * int) -> ('a, 'b) Socket.sock
      val socket': (NetHostDB.addr_family * int * int)
                   -> ('a, 'b) Socket.sock
      val socketPair: (NetHostDB.addr_family * int)
                      -> (('a, 'b) Socket.sock * ('a, 'b) Socket.sock)
      val socketPair': (NetHostDB.addr_family * int * int)
                       -> (('a, 'b) Socket.sock * ('a, 'b) Socket.sock)
   end
The first int in each tuple should be the (abstract)
Socket.SOCK.sock_type.