flan/lib/types.ml
Joseph Ferano de792fe141 A container holding an integer, a float, a string and a boolean at once
(vec-new dyn) is not a (Vec dyn). At milestone 1 the heterogeneous container is
the dyn runtime's own object and its type is dyn like everything else the
runtime hands back, which is what lets push, at and len on it be the dyn
operations instead of a type-erased Vec over eight-byte elements. It takes no
allocator, and the refusal says why: the storage has to be storage the collector
already knows about, where a Flan Vec's block would hold roots inside memory the
collector does not own.

len answers an i32 and at answers a dyn. The asymmetry is deliberate -- a length
is what an index loop compares against, and handing back a boxed number would
make (< i (len xs)) a dyn comparison and two allocations an iteration.

The operand-order bug, which the first test could not see because both its
operands were dyn: (+ n x) over a typed n and a dyn x threaded i64 into the
second check, expect did what an annotation site had asked for and unboxed, and
the result was a machine add of a value the runtime was never asked about -- the
program trapping on a float instead of promoting it, with nothing in the source
to say why. (+ x n) boxed correctly, so it was visible in one operand order
only. binary now takes dyn_ok from the operators that have a dyn lowering and
checks both operands on their own terms, which is safe exactly when neither
needs an expectation to check -- a literal still takes the other's type, and a
keyword still gets one, since :lo has no meaning without it.

Cast had no bool arms, so the bool boundary failed to emit; reachability hid it,
because the program that used it dropped the function. dyn does not cross to C:
it is one word and would have passed as an integer, and C has no way to ask what
the word means. A condition may not carry one either, nor hold one in a field --
a payload crosses a handler boundary and has to stay rooted across the transfer,
which is the collector's question and milestone 2's.
2026-09-19 06:06:44 +07:00

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8.0 KiB
OCaml

(** Resolved types: what [Ast.texpr] means once names are looked up.
The AST's type expressions are surface syntax — [Tname "Ptr"] and
[Tapp ("Option", ...)] are just names there. Here they are the real thing,
and two types are the same type exactly when they are structurally equal.
Milestone 2 has no generics, so there is no unification and no substitution:
a type variable is parsed, carried, and rejected the moment a value would
have to have it. That rejection lives in [Check]; this module only names
the shape. *)
(* Machine integer types. Signedness and width are both part of the type —
there is no implicit widening anywhere, per plan.org. *)
type ikind = I8 | I16 | I32 | I64 | U8 | U16 | U32 | U64
type fkind = F32 | F64
type t =
| Int of ikind
| Float of fkind
| Bool
| String
| Unit (* the zero-sized type, not C's void *)
| Never (* return, exit, error: no value at all *)
| Named of string (* a struct or data type, declared here *)
(* A C enum: an i32 at run time, but its own type, so a keyword at a call
site has something to resolve against and a plain integer does not fit. *)
| Enum of string
| Slice of t (* [T] ptr+len, non-owning *)
| Array of int64 * t (* [n T] inline, a value, copies *)
| Map of t * t (* (Map K V) *)
| Ptr of t (* (Ptr T) *)
(* [Allocator]: a builtin opaque type, the way [string] is a builtin
ptr+len. It is a [Types.t] case with no user-writable constructor, which
is what lets spec-memory.md's "procedure plus an opaque data pointer" be
expressed with none of milestone 5's function values — the procedure is a
C symbol the emitter names and no Flan type ever mentions it. At run time
it is a pointer to the runtime's [flan_allocator], never a copy of one:
the capability set and the epoch have to be shared by every container
made from it, and a copy would give each its own. *)
| Alloc
(* [(Vec T)]: ptr + len + cap + allocator, owning and move-only. One
type-erased runtime over (size, align) stands behind every instantiation,
so this is a container without generics — the concrete type is known only
at the call site, which is exactly where the two numbers are produced. *)
| Vec of t
| Option of t (* (Option T) *)
| Fn of t list * t (* (Fn [T ...] R) *)
| Var of string (* a type variable — milestone 5 *)
(* [dyn]: one machine word whose contents the runtime knows and this module
does not. It is a written type — [(defvar x dyn 5)] boxes the 5 — and it
is also what an unannotated [defn] parameter means, which is why it is a
case here and not a Named type the prelude declares: the checker has to
recognise it to choose the boxing and the dyn op lowering, and a name in a
table cannot be matched on.
Nothing about the representation is stated here on purpose. The word is
opaque to the compiler — runtime/flan_dyn.h owns which bits are a tag —
so that milestone 2 can change the encoding without touching Emit. *)
| Dyn
let signed = function
| I8 | I16 | I32 | I64 -> true
| U8 | U16 | U32 | U64 -> false
let bits = function
| I8 | U8 -> 8 | I16 | U16 -> 16 | I32 | U32 -> 32 | I64 | U64 -> 64
let bits_f = function F32 -> 32 | F64 -> 64
let ikind_of_name = function
| "i8" -> Some I8 | "i16" -> Some I16 | "i32" -> Some I32 | "i64" -> Some I64
| "u8" -> Some U8 | "u16" -> Some U16 | "u32" -> Some U32 | "u64" -> Some U64
| _ -> None
let fkind_of_name = function
| "f32" -> Some F32 | "f64" -> Some F64 | _ -> None
(* Every name the resolver accepts as a primitive type. The list exists so a
near-miss can be reported as the typo it is. [Unit] is on it because the
resolver still answers to that name -- [Cimport] builds [Tname "Unit"] for
C's void, and never goes through the parser -- but nobody writes it: unit
is spelled [()] in source, and [Parse.texpr] refuses the word. *)
let primitive_names =
[ "i8"; "i16"; "i32"; "i64"; "u8"; "u16"; "u32"; "u64";
"f32"; "f64"; "bool"; "string"; "dyn"; "Unit"; "Never"; "Allocator" ]
let ikind_name k =
(if signed k then "i" else "u") ^ string_of_int (bits k)
let fkind_name = function F32 -> "f32" | F64 -> "f64"
(* Structural equality is the whole story: no subtyping, no coercion between
machine types, no variance. Written out rather than using [=] so that adding
a case with a function or a mutable field cannot silently break it. *)
let rec equal a b =
match a, b with
| Int x, Int y -> x = y
| Float x, Float y -> x = y
(* [Dyn] is equal to itself and to nothing else. Two dyn values may hold
different things at run time, which is the point of the type and is not
this function's question: this is identity of *static* types, and there is
one dyn type the way there is one string type. *)
| Bool, Bool | String, String | Unit, Unit | Never, Never | Dyn, Dyn -> true
| Named x, Named y | Enum x, Enum y -> String.equal x y
| Slice x, Slice y -> equal x y
| Array (n, x), Array (m, y) -> Int64.equal n m && equal x y
| Map (k, v), Map (k', v') -> equal k k' && equal v v'
| Ptr x, Ptr y -> equal x y
| Alloc, Alloc -> true
| Vec x, Vec y -> equal x y
| Option x, Option y -> equal x y
| Fn (ps, r), Fn (ps', r') ->
List.length ps = List.length ps'
&& List.for_all2 equal ps ps'
&& equal r r'
| Var x, Var y -> String.equal x y
| _ -> false
let rec to_string = function
| Int k -> ikind_name k
| Float k -> fkind_name k
| Bool -> "bool"
| String -> "string"
| Unit -> "()"
| Never -> "Never"
| Named n | Enum n -> n
| Slice t -> "[" ^ to_string t ^ "]"
| Array (n, t) -> Printf.sprintf "[%Ld %s]" n (to_string t)
| Map (k, v) -> Printf.sprintf "(Map %s %s)" (to_string k) (to_string v)
| Ptr t -> "(Ptr " ^ to_string t ^ ")"
| Alloc -> "Allocator"
| Vec t -> "(Vec " ^ to_string t ^ ")"
| Option t -> "(Option " ^ to_string t ^ ")"
| Fn (ps, r) ->
Printf.sprintf "(Fn [%s] %s)"
(String.concat " " (List.map to_string ps)) (to_string r)
| Var n -> n
| Dyn -> "dyn"
let is_numeric = function Int _ | Float _ -> true | _ -> false
(* The key types the first Map implementation admits (spec-memory.md, "Maps —
first implementation"): integers, enums, strings, fixed arrays, and value
structs composed recursively from those. Equality and hashing for them are
compiler-provided structural operations, so this is the whole of what the
emitted hash and equality pair has to cover — there is no dispatch to design
and no type class anywhere.
A struct is [Named], and whether its fields qualify cannot be decided here:
this module has no field table. [Check] finishes the job by walking them,
which is also where it emits the pair. Everything this does say no to says
no for a reason that will not change with a milestone: a [Ptr] or a [Slice]
key would hash an address, and hashing an address is a different operation
from hashing what it points at. *)
let rec keyable = function
| Int _ | Enum _ | Bool | String -> true
| Float _ -> false (* NaN /= NaN, and 0.0 and -0.0 differ bytewise *)
| Array (_, t) -> keyable t
| Named _ -> true (* [Check] decides, by walking the fields *)
| _ -> false
(* Ordering and equality are defined on machine types and on nothing else at
milestone 2 — strings, structs and slices have no built-in [=], because an
unconstrained type supports only what every type supports (plan.org, Types). *)
let is_comparable = function Enum _ -> true | t -> is_numeric t
let is_equatable = is_comparable
(* [Never] is the type of an expression that does not produce a value: return,
an early-returning `some`, exit. It fits anywhere, and that is the only
place anything resembling subtyping exists. *)
let fits ~expected ~actual =
match actual with Never -> true | _ -> equal expected actual