ocaml/parsing/CONFLICTS.md

Conflicts

Some of the conflicts and issues in the grammar are documented here.

A variant type that lists a single atomic type

Why can't [t] be considered a valid atomic type? (A variant type.)

(This is related to MPR #3835.)

A class type that begins with [t] foo could continue as follows:

  [t] foo -> <class_type>

Here t is understood as a variant type, and is used as an actual parameter of the parameterized type 'a foo.

Or it could continue as follows:

  [t] foo

Here t is a type (there is no variant type) and is used as an actual parameter of the class ['a] foo.

After we have read the closing bracket and are looking ahead at foo, we need to decide which of the above two situations we have. (The first situation requires a reduction; the second situation requires shifting.) But we cannot decide yet; we would need to look at the arrow -> beyond foo in order to decide. In this example LR(2) is required; in general, foo could be replaced with an arbitrary qualified name, so unbounded lookahead is required.

As a result of this issue, we must abandon the idea that [t] could be a well-formed variant type. In the syntax of atomic types, instead of:

  atomic_type: LBRACKET row_field RBRACKET

we must use the more restricted form:

  atomic_type: LBRACKET tag_field RBRACKET

In other words, we rule out exactly the following:

  atomic_type: LBRACKET atomic_type RBRACKET