Eugene Kirpichov wrote:
Hello.
Consider the type: (forall a . a) -> String.
On one hand, it is rank-2 polymorphic, because it abstracts over a
rank-1 polymorphic type.
On the other hand, it is monomorphic because it isn't actually
quantified itself: in my intuitive view, a parametrically polymorphic
type has infinitely many instantiations (for example, Int -> Int is an
instantiation of forall a . a -> a, and String -> String also is), and
this type doesn't have any instantiations at all.
Which is correct? Is there really a contradiction? What is the
definition of rank of a polymorphic type?
There's a nice paper about this:
Simon Peyton Jones, Dimitrios Vytiniotis, Stephanie Weirich and Mark Shields
"Practical type inference for arbitrary-rank types"
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers/higher-rank/putting.pdf
Section 3.1 of that paper defines what rank types have: "The rank of a
type describes the depth at which universal quantifiers appear
contravariantly"
Looking at the examples that are then given I'd say your example has
rank 2 (but I'm no expert). It only mentions the depth of the forall,
not whether it has any instantiations.
HTH,
Martijn.
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