Type ascription

Closes rust-lang#354

Author: nrc

text/0000-type-ascription.md

@@ -0,0 +1,174 @@
+- Start Date: 2015-2-3
+- RFC PR: (leave this empty)
+- Rust Issue: (leave this empty)
+
+# Summary
+
+Add type ascription to expressions and patterns.
+
+Type ascription on expression has already been implemented. Type ascription on
+patterns can probably wait until post-1.0.
+
+See also discussion on #354 and [issue 10502](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/10502).
+
+
+# Motivation
+
+Type inference is imperfect. It is often useful to help type inference by
+annotating a sub-expression or sub-pattern with a type. Currently, this is only
+possible by extracting the sub-expression into a variable using a `let`
+statement and/or giving a type for a whole expression or pattern. This is un-
+ergonomic, and sometimes impossible due to lifetime issues. Specifically, a
+variable has lifetime of its enclosing scope, but a sub-expression's lifetime is
+typically limited to the nearest semi-colon.
+
+Typical use cases are where a function's return type is generic (e.g., collect)
+and where we want to force a coercion.
+
+Type ascription can also be used for documentation and debugging - where it is
+unclear from the code which type will be inferred, type ascription can be used
+to precisely communicate expectations to the compiler or other programmers.
+
+By allowing type ascription in more places, we remove the inconsistency that
+type ascription is currently only allowed on top-level patterns.
+
+## Examples:
+
+Generic return type:
+
+```
+// Current.
+let z = if ... {
+    let x: Vec<_> = foo.enumerate().collect();
+    x
+} else {
+    ...
+};
+
+// With type ascription.
+let z = if ... {
+    foo.enumerate().collect(): Vec<_>
+} else {
+    ...
+};
+```
+
+Coercion:
+
+```
+fn foo<T>(a: T, b: T) { ... }
+
+// Current.
+let x = [1u32, 2, 4];
+let y = [3u32];
+...
+let x: &[_] = &x;
+let y: &[_] = &y;
+foo(x, y);
+
+// With type ascription.
+let x = [1u32, 2, 4];
+let y = [3u32];
+...
+foo(x: &[_], y: &[_]);
+```
+
+In patterns:
+
+```
+struct Foo<T> { a: T, b: String }
+
+// Current
+fn foo(Foo { a, .. }: Foo<i32>) { ... }
+
+// With type ascription.
+fn foo(Foo { a: i32, .. }) { ... }
+```
+
+
+# Detailed design
+
+The syntax of expressions is extended with type ascription:
+
+```
+e ::= ... | e: T
+```
+
+where `e` is an expression and `T` is a type. Type ascription has the same
+precedence as explicit coercions using `as`.
+
+When type checking `e: T`, `e` must have type `T`. The `must have type` test
+includes implicit coercions and subtyping, but not explicit coercions. `T` may
+be any well-formed type.
+
+At runtime, type ascription is a no-op, unless an implicit coercion was used in
+type checking, in which case the dynamic semantics of a type ascription
+expression are exactly those of the implicit coercion.
+
+The syntax of sub-patterns is extended to include an optional type ascription.
+Old syntax:
+
+```
+P ::= SP: T | SP
+SP ::= var | 'box' SP | ...
+```
+
+where `P` is a pattern, `SP` is a sub-pattern, `T` is a type, and `var` is a
+variable name.
+
+New syntax:
+
+```
+P ::= SP: T | SP
+SP ::= var | 'box' P | ...
+```
+
+Type ascription in patterns has the narrowest precedence, e.g., `box x: T` means
+`box (x: T)`.
+
+In type checking, if an expression is matched against a pattern, when matching
+a sub-pattern the matching sub-expression must have the ascribed type (again,
+this check includes subtyping and implicit coercion). Types in patterns play no
+role at runtime.
+
+@eddyb has implemented the expressions part of this RFC,
+[PR](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/21836).
+
+
+# Drawbacks
+
+More syntax, another feature in the language.
+
+Interacts poorly with struct initialisers (changing the syntax for struct
+literals has been [discussed and rejected](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/65)
+and again in [discuss](http://internals.rust-lang.org/t/replace-point-x-3-y-5-with-point-x-3-y-5/198)).
+
+If we introduce named arguments in the future, then it would make it more
+difficult to support the same syntax as field initialisers.
+
+
+# Alternatives
+
+We could do nothing and force programmers to use temporary variables to specify
+a type. However, this is less ergonomic and has problems with scopes/lifetimes.
+Patterns can be given a type as a whole rather than annotating a part of the
+pattern.
+
+We could allow type ascription in expressions but not patterns. This is a
+smaller change and addresses most of the motivation.
+
+Rely on explicit coercions - the current plan [RFC 401](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/0401-coercions.md)
+is to allow explicit coercion to any valid type and to use a customisable lint
+for trivial casts (that is, those given by subtyping, including the identity
+case). If we allow trivial casts, then we could always use explicit coercions
+instead of type ascription. However, we would then lose the distinction between
+implicit coercions which are safe and explicit coercions, such as narrowing,
+which require more programmer attention. This also does not help with patterns.
+
+
+# Unresolved questions
+
+Is the suggested precedence correct? Especially for patterns.
+
+Does type ascription on patterns have backwards compatibility issues?
+