(i32 (at xs i)) inside a body bounded integer? was refused with "i32
converts a number, found t". Arithmetic, comparison, min/max, the
bitwise fold and the shifts all ask the where clause; the conversions
were the family nobody had gone back to, and the cast block held three
arms of it.
The machine-type target asked Types.is_numeric of its operand and the
enum target asked Types.Int _, so a variable fell through both to the
refusal however it was bounded. The variable target had the opposite
defect: it asked the bound of the target and then took any generic
operand, so a second variable declared only ordered? passed the abstract
pass on the strength of a sentence about a different one. Nothing wrong
was ever emitted through it — ordered? admits numbers and enums and both
convert at the instantiation — which is exactly why it is worth closing:
the hole opens the day ordered? admits a type that does not.
The rule is the repo's own, applied to a set instead of a type: a
conversion is legal at a bounded variable exactly when it is legal at
every type the bound admits. A machine-type target needs numeric?, an
enum target needs integer? because numeric? admits the floats the
concrete arm refuses, and ordered?/equal?/hashable? admit nothing — the
last by what the predicate says rather than by the set it denotes, since
hashable? already admits strings and ordered? may.
Both float targets and the narrowing i32 stay legal: (f64 i64-x) rounds
above 2^53 and (i32 f64-x) truncates where the types are written, and a
generic that refused what its copies accept would be the fork the rule
forbids. FIX.org, 2026-09-21, has the account, and records what this
costs: no predicate now licenses a generic enum to integer conversion,
and enum? is the eventual answer.
The refusal says what the variable is known to be and what to write, in
the clause spelling unconstrained already uses: a body with no clause
gets the clause, a body that has one is told which predicate to add.
Joseph Ferano
5ad16d6815