[erlang-questions] Maps branch and disclaimers

[Chris King]

On Wed, 30 Oct 2013 11:36:12 -0400, Anthony Ramine <n.oxyde@REDACTED>  
wrote:

> In the foo/1 spec, the binary() doesn’t mean that foo/1 handles *all*  
> binaries, it means that if you give something that is not a binary(),  
> the call is guaranteed to fail.

Mm, the Erlang reference manual is unclear about the correct  
interpretation.  Dialyzer's interpretation differs with the -Wunderspecs  
flag:

$ cat > foo.erl
-module(foo).
-export([bar/1]).
-spec bar(integer()) -> ok.
bar(42) -> ok.

$ dialyzer foo.erl
done (passed successfully)

$ dialyzer -Wunderspecs foo.erl
foo.erl:3: Type specification foo:bar(integer()) -> 'ok' is a supertype of  
the success typing: foo:bar(42) -> 'ok'
done (warnings were emitted)

The latter is more useful to me – I would like to know from the spec that  
a function can handle certain inputs (or, in the case of a heterogeneous  
map, will produce certain outputs).  Knowing that "the function will  
return this type or crash" is less useful.

(And the benefit from this interpretation – knowing that given certain  
inputs, the function will *definitely* crash, is not generally useful (and  
I have used languages where this is expressible).  I realize that  
internally this is how Dialyzer works, but that does not mean the type  
language must work his way.)

Without a firm definition, it's not possible to say how function specs  
"should" be interpreted.


FWIW Dialyzer *can* (with -Wunderspecs) check the heterogeneous map  
type-analogous case of a function returning a function.  (i.e. it can  
check that the returned function accepts at *least* the specified values;  
just as with a heterogeneous map, we care whether it contains at *least*  
the specified keys.)


> PS: Your MUA sends rich text in 12px.

*checks settings* Ah, it was set to "prefer text/reply with same  
formatting".  Fixed, thanks.