What I had in mind is actually something pretty simple (since it won't
be very useful if it is not simple :-))
> My gut feeling about this approach is that the type system could
> probably work well for arrays that are initialized linearly, e.g.
>
> let a = Array.create n in
> for i = 0 to n - 1 do
> a.(i) <- ...
> (* at this point, the type system knows that
> a.(0)...a.(i-1) are initialized and
> a.(i)...a.(n-1) are not *)
> done
> (* at this point, the type system knowns that all elements of a
> are initialized *)
>
> But notice that most of these cases are easily expressed using Array.init!
But one common case is not covered: when you initialize A[i], you may
need values stored in A[j] for some 0 <= j < i. Is it possible to make
'init' handle this case as well. I must say that I have problems writing
such a function. This is certainly a problem that people who are
interested in generic programming should study (if it has not be
studied yet).
> However, the type system is going to break horribly on more complex
> initialization patterns, e.g. the following code for tabulating the
> inverse of a permutation f over [0...n-1] :
>
> let a = Array.create n in
> for i = 0 to n - 1 do a.(f(i)) <- i done
>
> So, I don't think the (Caml) programmer will gain much from a type
> system/static analysis for array initialization. (For a lower-level
> language such as TAL, the story may be different, though.)
In this case, I could imagine that there are programmers who
would like to verify that this code indeed initialize every
array cell; this is clearly a case where initialization upon
allocation doesn't make much sense.
Is it possible to have something like the following in the library:
Array.init': int -> (int -> (int * 'a)) -> 'a Array
let Array.init' n f =
let a = Array.create n in
for i = 0 to n - 1 do
let (j, v) = f i
in a.(j) <- v
done
(* then check that all cells are initilized *)
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