I’m trying to create a function that depending on input types returns different output types using type params. But I’m not getting it to work, take a look at this playground:
So it seems like the type parameter is “decided” on the first call do api.do, so all subsequent usage of the function is no longer generic. I guess this is just how it works. But is there another way to achieve this, without creating two variables (as seen on row 37)?
Indeed, this is a limitation with the normal rules of polymorphism in ReScript. 'a gets unified with int, so then it cannot be unified with string.
There is a way around it, though. Instead of making 'a a type parameter of apiInstance, you need to annotate the do record field with an “explicit universally quantified” type annotation.
type apiInstance<'b> = {do: 'a. request<'a, 'b> => response<'a, 'b>}
// This ^^^
I’m not sure if this feature is documented in ReScript yet, but it’s an OCaml feature that ReScript inherited.
Worked great! Thank you so much, didn’t know there was OCaml features inherited even. Need to look into this more.
Here is a nice blog post that introduces explicitly-polymorphic types in a simple way: https://www.craigfe.io/posts/polymorphic-type-constraints. It is about OCaml, but like johnj mentioned it works the same. Maybe it will help you out!