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Fix let inference (attempts to fix #72 and #82). #89

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merged 1 commit into from
Oct 31, 2016
Merged

Fix let inference (attempts to fix #72 and #82). #89

merged 1 commit into from
Oct 31, 2016

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VitorCBSB
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@VitorCBSB VitorCBSB commented Sep 25, 2016

Attempts to fix issues #72 and #82 regarding let polymorphism. Inference works correctly for the functions provided in them and they have been added to the test.ml file. Big thanks to @Azure-Vani for the pointer to his / her implementation as well as providing the algorithm described in TAPL.

For this fix, I had to radically change the infer function's interface, and alter the Infer monad to being a simple State + Reader + Except instead of RWS (the Writer part was not being used). This might not be good for readability, but it's the solution I could come up with.

Additionally, this is going to need to be reflected in the text, but I'm not confident enough to submit changes to it.

Adds the offending functions to test.ml.
@sdiehl
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sdiehl commented Oct 2, 2016

I'll take a look at this.

@sdiehl sdiehl self-assigned this Oct 2, 2016
@lexi-lambda
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I am certainly no expert, so take this comment with a grain of salt, but I took a glance at this, and it looks right to me. I think it might be possible to implement it more nicely, though, by keeping the use of RWS and using listen from MonadWriter instead of manually threading the results around.

@JKTKops
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JKTKops commented Jul 5, 2019

I know this is several years late, but there is indeed a better solution, which I found while trying to build my own compiler as a learning exercise, using the code here as a starting point.

in particular, the code

infer expr = case expr of
  ...
  Let x e1 e2 -> do
    env <- ask
    t1 <- infer e1
    let sc = generalize env t1
    ...

should be

infer expr = case expr of -- < I would also use LambdaCase here
  ...
  Let x e1 e2 -> do
    env <- ask
    (t0, constraints) <- listen $ infer e1
    subst <- liftEither $ runSolve constraints
    let t1 = apply subst t0
        sc = generalize env t1
    ...

The issue, as I'm sure is well known, is that we generate constraints for the type variable in the scheme bound to x, which are never solved because each use of x causes instantiation of its scheme. This is not a problem if x's type should truly be universal, but this is rarely the case. My simplest breaking example was \y -> let x = y + 1 in x. We generate the type y :: a and the scheme x :: forall b. b. We also generate the constraints a ~ Int and b ~ Int, where the latter will never be used. In the body of the let, we instantiate x to x :: c. Then we solve our constraints and produce the incorrect type forall a. Int -> a.

This can be fixed simply by listening to the constraint generation while inferring the RHS of the binding, solving the constraints, and applying the substitution to to the type of e1 before generalizing it. Now we correctly generate the type y :: a and the scheme x :: forall . Int.

The algorithm referenced in #82 warns of a caveat with generalization, but the existing logic seems to already handle it; the given example:

(\f x -> let g = f in g 0) (\x -> if x then True else False) True

fails the type checker.

ChickenProp added a commit to ChickenProp/haskenthetical that referenced this pull request May 18, 2020
See <sdiehl/write-you-a-haskell#89>. The problem
could be manifested by trying to type check:

    (let ((f (λ f (+ f 1)))) (f "foo"))

which would pass type checking and fail at runtime. The cause was that
when we did

    t1 <- infer e1

we would get a type variable along with some constraints on it. Like
'TVar e where e ~ Float'. But then we generalized e to `forall e. e`
without knowing it unified with Float, and that's totally different.
mhuesch added a commit to mhuesch/poly-rs that referenced this pull request Oct 28, 2020
as documented in pr#89

sdiehl/write-you-a-haskell#89

the original approach of the tutorial had an issue with `let` inference.
the PR implemented a new approach which resolves the issue.

this commit adapts the code to take that approach.
mhuesch added a commit to mhuesch/poly-rs that referenced this pull request Oct 30, 2020
* add types module

* beginnings of type inference!

* add `env` module for typing environment

sdiehl has a module which presents a subset of (the wrapped)
`Data.Map` API.

this is my take on that. it doesn't seems strictly necessary - we can
probably just use `HashMap` directly, and perhaps it would be nicer to
just do that, because it implements so many handy traits.

I thought this would teach me a bit about API design and also about
Rust trait stuff.

we can rewrite later if we feel it's not worth its maintenance cost.

* more on `infer`

finish implementing the analogue of `Substitutable`. still seems like
this approach is pretty good. I am getting schooled on Rust a bit which
is fun.

* cargo fmt

this was long overdue because I was working on my Mac and it doesn't
have `rustfmt` through the nix install for some reason...

* eschew (zero cost) indirection: turn `Subst` into a type synonym

seems cleaner - we don't get much from the newtype.

* cargo fmt

* wip: start on infer

* wip 2: more `infer`, before realizing we need a diff approach

pr#89 on the repo demonstrates that inference was broken. the new
approach should work, which is excellent.

* pivot: return `Vec<Constraint>` from `infer`

as documented in pr#89

sdiehl/write-you-a-haskell#89

the original approach of the tutorial had an issue with `let` inference.
the PR implemented a new approach which resolves the issue.

this commit adapts the code to take that approach.

* flesh out the body of `infer` for all match cases

seems to be going smoothly ⛵

* implement `generalize`

* implement most of the solver

we are now only missing `unify_many`.

* implement `unify_many`

* finish type inference??

I have now implemented all the functions of `poly`'s `Infer` module.

* example of inference - it fails to propagate constraints

* rename `Decl` to `Defn` (lisp/scheme style) & define a parser for it

had to lift out a bunch of common sub-parsers. turns out the type sigs
are verbose but almost entirely the same from one to the next - only the
arguments and return type really differ.

* make a repl which parses & typechecks `Expr`s

* setup for demo asciinema

* fix bug in `App` type inferece

I forgot to perform the substitution from the first unification.

d'oh 🤦‍♂️

* repl: pretty print the scheme

* fix import in test

broken by adding `util::pretty` module.
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4 participants