On 26/10/2009 14:47, Kagamin wrote:
Yigal Chripun Wrote:
for instance there's special handling of void return types so it would
be easier to work with in generic code. instead of this compiler hack a
much simpler solution is to have a unit type and ditch C style void. the
bottom type should also exist mainly for completeness and for a few
stdlib functions like abort() and exit()
uint and void return types may be nearly equivalent for x86 architecture, CLI
makes strong difference between them.
I have no idea what uint has to do with what I said.
in type theory, a unit type contains only one value, and a bottom type
contains zero values.
the single value of unit can be for example an empty tuple.
a function like abort doesn't return anything at all so it's return type
is the bottom type.
In ML all functions have exactly one tuple argument and one tuple return
type.
so, for example this c function:
void foo();
would have the following signature in ML:
unit -> unit
if we have:
void foo();
void bar();
foo(bar()); is perfectly legal with ML semantics since both functions
have the signature: unit -> unit
