>>>>> "skaller" == skaller  <skaller@users.sourceforge.net> writes:

  skaller> You are thinking about this problem *backwards*! :)

Well that's why it's giving me so much trouble. :-)

  skaller> The cast will always work if the object has a method named
  skaller> 'f' which when invoked with no arguments returns unit.
  skaller> Obviously, because Ocaml is wonderful, your cast will fail
  skaller> on objects without a suitable 'f' method.

I LIKE IT.  No inheritance required.  Objects which have the same
method with the same signature work "automagically".

  skaller> The solution is to use a factory function in a single
  skaller> module, and return an abstraction of the class type you
  skaller> wish to deal with.

I'm not sure I followed that, can you expand ?

For future readers of the list here and appropriate example.  It turns
out I was silly and never even bothered to look in the _manual_ of all
places.  I looked everywhere else.  This is covered in the section
called "Using Coercions", go figure.

Anyway, enough blather, here's the example :

class elt = object
  method f x = 2 * x
end
;;

class elt_A = object
  method f x = 3 *x
  method g x = 3. *. x
end
;;

let the_list = [ new elt; new elt ; ((new elt_A) :> elt) ]
;;

List.iter (fun x -> print_int (x#f 2);) the_list
;;

It does the right thing.  Here is a nice example to show type safety.
Re-define elt_A as:

class elt_A = object
  method f x = 3. *. x
  method g x = 3. *. x
end

And get the error :

This expression cannot be coerced to type elt = < f : int -> int >;
it has type elt_A = < f : float -> float; g : float -> float >
but is here used with type #elt as 'a = < f : int -> int; .. >


Thanks to all who answered.


Brian

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