[mercury-users] Flattening (was: maybe(T))

[Michael Day]

Well, looks like the idea I've been ineffectually groping towards is 
really a type flattening optimisation that could be applied in specific 
cases. I've noticed the following comment in the library:

% This "fat list" representation is more efficient than a list of pairs.

And the same sentiment seems to apply to the use of maybe(T) and other
small convenience types generally. This kind of flattening can always be
applied by hand, it just requires a lot of bulky code.

I get the feeling though that type flattening would require marshalling
whenever the flattened structure had to be passed to a predicate expecting
the generic one though, which would probably kill any benefits, or at
least make it very difficult to identify when the optimisation would be
beneficial.

Michael

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