Source file: parametric-polymorphism.fut

Parametric polymorphism

A polymorphic function is one in which one of the arguments can be of any type. We write a polymorphic function by first listing the type parameters in which the function is polymorphic.

def pair 'a 'b (x: a) (y: b) : (a,b) =
  (x,y)

We do not pass the type parameters a and b explicitly when we call pair. Rather, they are automatically inferred from the value parameters.

def a_pair = pair 1 true

Although using explicit type parameters is recommended, a polymorphic type can also be inferred automatically:

def pair_implicit x y =
  (x,y)

We can use type parameters to make a function less polymorphic than it would normally be. For example, we can write a variant of pair where we require that both arguments have the same type:

def pair_same 'a (x: a) (y: a) : (a,a) =
  (x,y)

When a polymorphic function is called with an array argument, all arrays passed for the same polymorphic type must be of the same size. For example, pair_same [1] [2,3] is illegal, but pair [1] [2,3] is fine.