[erlang-questions] Binaries and Core Erlang

[Aggelos Giantsios]

Hello everybody!!

Let's assume we have the following code:

-module(foo).
bar() -> <<1:3>>.

In R15B03, calling foo:bar() evaluates to <<1:3>> as we should expect.

Should you compile the module to Core Erlang the resulting code is

'foo'/0 =
    fun () ->
#{#<1>(3,1,'integer',['unsigned'|['big']])}#

and by using the core_scan and core_parse modules the resulting AST in
record format of foo is

{c_fun,[],[],
       {c_binary,[],
                 [{c_bitstr,[],
                            {c_literal,[],1},
                            {c_literal,[],3},
                            {c_literal,[],1},
                            {c_literal,[],integer},
                            {c_literal,[],[unsigned,big]}}]}}

Having said that, let's try to evaluate the above #c_fun{}.
#c_fun{} has no parameters so we use an empty set of bindings and we
evaluate #c_binary{}.
#c_binary{} evaluates to the concatenation of the [#c_bitstr{}]. We have
one #c_bitstr{} so the resulting valu is the value of #c_bitstr{}.
#c_bitstr{} evaluates to <<1:3/unsigned-big-integer-unit:1>> that equals to
<<1:3>> making this the overall value of the #c_fun{}, which is consistent
with what we got from the interpreter.

However, in the Core Erlang 1.0.3 language specs, it explicitly says that
the number of bits in the resulting value of a #c_binary{} must be
divisible by 8 making it a valid Erlang binary. In this case, the
#c_binary{} evaluates to the bitstring <<1:3>> which is not a valid binary.
So, in theory, we should have raised an exception at this point. But this
is not what happens when we evaluate foo:bar/0 in the interpreter.

So is there an inconsistency with the Core Erlang specs or am I missing
something?

Thanks,
Aggelos
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