[int_19h]

A largely unrelated question: do you know why most ML dialects have this weird scoping rule for record members, where they share the same scope as the record itself (and so another record cannot easily reuse the same field name)? It seems awfully inconvenient, and it feels like it could be trivially resolved by allowing reuse with an explicit disambiguation syntax. Or am I missing something?

[groovy2shoes]

Which dialects? Both Standard ML and OCaml can handle multiple record types with homonymous fields just fine:

    $ poly
    Poly/ML 5.5.2 Release
    > type point2 = {x : real, y : real};
    type point2 = {x: real, y: real}
    > type point3 = {x : real, y : real, z : real};
    type point3 = {x: real, y: real, z: real}
    > let val pt = {x = 1.0, y = 2.0} in #x pt end;
    val it = 1.0: real
    > let val pt = {x = 3.0, y = 4.0, z = 5.0} in #x pt end;
    val it = 3.0: real
    >



    $ ocaml
            OCaml version 4.03.0
    
    # type point2 = {x : float; y : float};;
    type point2 = { x : float; y : float; }
    # type point3 = {x : float; y : float; z : float};;
    type point3 = { x : float; y : float; z : float; }
    # let pt = {x = 1.0; y = 2.0} in pt.x;;
    - : float = 1.
    # let pt = {x = 3.0; y = 4.0; z = 5.0} in pt.x;;
    - : float = 3.
    # 

The only nuance with record labels in ML, as far as I can remember, is that the type of projection operations can be ambiguous if the exact type of the record is unknown (e.g., in `(fn pt => #x pt)`, the type of `pt` cannot be inferred since it could be `point2`, `point3`, `{x : int}`, `{x : real}`, ...; but this can be disambiguated with a type annotation: `(fn (pt : point3) => #x pt)`).

Perhaps I've misunderstood the question. If so, can you give me an example?

[int_19h]

This is weird. Last time I really did anything with ML was ages ago, and I distinctly remember fighting with the fields... I wish I could remember the context, though.

Anyway, good to know that it's definitely not OCaml!