[TYPES] breaking abstraction with ML exceptions

[Derek Dreyer]

Hi, Sam.

I would take issue with your characterization of this example as
"breaking abstraction".  By way of analogy, when you opaquely seal a
module with a signature containing a field

val v : T,

it does not mean that the client of the module sees a "fresh" value of
type T (whatever that could mean) -- it means that the client can use
the exported value at the type T.  In the case of an exception spec,
you are exporting a value/constructor of type exn.  Values of type exn
can have their tags dynamically inspected, and that's what's happening
here, so I fail to see how any abstraction has been broken here.

Furthermore, I can't think of any other sensible semantics for
signature matching with exceptions.  If the external M.A in your
example were somehow made distinct from the internal A (= C), that
would mean that the exception A had a different dynamic representation
when referred to outside the module than it did inside the module.  In
fact, they would be distinct values!  This would be particularly
horrible, since the module's implementation would not even have a way
of referring to the doppelganger exception M.A (and catching it) from
within the module.  This is reminiscent of the "double vision problem"
in recursive modules, except much much worse.  I would go so far as to
say that such a semantics would be impossible to program against.

Do you have some alternative sensible semantics for exceptions and
signature matching in mind?

Cheers,
Derek

On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 11:49 AM, Sam Lindley <Sam.Lindley at ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> [ The Types Forum, http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list ]
>
> The following SML program
>
>   exception C;
>
>   structure M :> sig exception A end =
>   struct
>     exception A = C
>   end;
>
>   (raise M.A) handle C => 42
>
> returns the value 42 (according to SML/NJ and, I believe, the 1997
> definition of Standard ML).
>
> The signature ascription appears to assert that exception A is abstract in
> M, and yet we are able to raise the exception M.A and catch it as C outside
> the scope of M. It makes no difference whether the signature ascription is
> transparent or opaque. The equivalent OCaml program yields the same result.
>
> Does this kind of code occur in practice?
>
> Sam
>
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