# Nested existentials

by Stephen Compall on Jul 27, 2015

technical

This is the fifth of a series of articles on “Type Parameters and Type Members”. If you haven’t yet, you should start at the beginning, which introduces code we refer to throughout this article without further ado.

Let’s consider a few values of type MList:

val estrs: MList = MCons("hi", MCons("bye", MNil())): MList.Aux[String]

val eints: MList = MCons(21, MCons(42, MNil())): MList.Aux[Int]

val ebools: MList = MCons(true, MCons(false, MNil())): MList.Aux[Boolean]


Recall from the first part that the equivalent type in PList style is PList[_]. Now, these variables all have the “same” type, by virtue of forgetting what their specific element type is, though you know that every value of, for example, estrs has the same type.

## What if we list different existentials?

Lists hold values of the same type, and as you might expect, you can put these three lists in another list:

val elists: PList[MList] =
PCons(estrs, PCons(eints, PCons(ebools, PNil())))


Again, the equivalent is PList[PList[_]]. We can see what this means merely by doing substitution in the PList type.

sealed abstract class PList
final case class PNil() extends PList
final case class PCons(head: MList, tail: PList)
// don't compile this, it's a thought process


Equivalently, head would have type PList[_], a homogeneous list of unknown element type, just like MList.

## Method equivalence … broken?

But we come to a problem. Suppose we wish to count the elements of doubly-nested lists.

def plenLength(xss: PList[PList[_]]): Int =
plenLengthTP(xss)

def plenLengthTP[T](xss: PList[PList[T]]): Int =
xss match {
case PNil() => 0
case PCons(h, t) => plengthT(h) + plenLengthTP(t)
}

TmTp5.scala:16: no type parameters for method plenLengthTP:
⤹ (xss: tmtp.PList[tmtp.PList[T]])Int exist so that it
⤹ can be applied to arguments (tmtp.PList[tmtp.PList[_]])
--- because ---
argument expression's type is not compatible with formal parameter type;
found   : tmtp.PList[tmtp.PList[_]]
required: tmtp.PList[tmtp.PList[?T]]


According to our equivalence test, neither of these methods works to implement the other! This despite the “simple rule” we have already discussed. Here’s the error the other way.

TmTp5.scala:20: type mismatch;
found   : tmtp.PList[tmtp.PList[T]]
required: tmtp.PList[tmtp.PList[_]]


The problem with calling plenLengthTP from plenLength is there is no one T we can choose, even an unspeakable one, to call plenLengthTP. That’s what the ?T and the “no type parameters” phrasing in the first error above means.

This is an accurate compiler error because PList[PList[_]] means PList[PList[E] forSome {type E}]. Let’s see the substitution again.

sealed abstract class PList
final case class PNil() extends PList
final case class PCons(head: PList[E] forSome {type E}, tail: PList)
// don't compile this, it's a thought process


Java has the same problem. See?

int llLength(final List<List<?>> xss) {
return llLengthTP(xss);
}

<T> int llLengthTP(final List<List<T>> xss) {
return 0;  // we only care about types in this example
}

TmTp5.java:7:  error: method llLengthTP in class TmTp5
⤹ cannot be applied to given types;
return llLengthTP(xss);
^

// or, with llLengthTP calling llLength
TmTp5.java:11:  error: incompatible types: List<List<T>>
⤹ cannot be converted to List<List<?>>
return llLength(xss);
^


This discovery, which I made for myself in the depths of the Ermine Java code (though it was certainly already well-known to others), was my first clue, personally, that the term “wildcard” was a lie, as discussed in a previous part.

## Scoping existential quantifiers

The difference is, in Scala, we can write an equivalent for plenLengthTP, using the Scala-only forSome existential quantifier.

def plenLengthE(xss: PList[PList[E]] forSome {type E}): Int =
plenLengthTP(xss)


Of course, this type doesn’t mean the same thing as plenLength’s type; for both plenLengthE and plenLengthTP, we demand proof that each sublist in the argument has the same element type, which is not a condition satisfied by either PList[PList[_]] or its equivalent PList[MList].

The reason you can’t invoke plenLength from plenLengthTP is complicated, even for this article. In short, plenLength demands evidence that, supposing PList had a method taking an argument of the element type, e.g. def lookAt(x: T): Unit, it could do things like xss.lookAt(PList("hi", PNil())). In plenLengthTP, this hypothetical method could only be invoked with empty lists, or lists gotten by inspecting xss itself.

That no such method exists is irrelevant for the purposes of this reasoning; we have written the definition of PList in a way that scalac assumes that such a method may exist. You can determine the consequences yourself by adding the lookAt method to PList, repeating the above substitution for PList, and thinking about the meaning of the resulting def lookAt(x: PList[E] forSome {type E}): Unit.

Let’s examine the meaning of the type PList[PList[E]] forSome {type E}. It requires a little bit more mental suspension.

// Let there be some unknown (abstract)
type E
// then the structure of the value is
sealed abstract class PList
final case class PNil() extends PList
final case class PCons(head: PList[E], tail: PList)
// don't compile this, it's a thought process


By moving the forSome existential scope outside the outer PList, we also move the existential type variable outside of the whole structure, substituting the same variable for each place we’re expanding the type under consideration. Once the forSome scope extends over the whole type, Scala can pick that type as the parameter to plenLengthTP.

This isn’t possible in Java at all; PList<PList<?>> is your only choice, as ? in Java, like _ in Scala, is always scoped to exactly one level outside. So in Java, you simply can’t write plenLengthE’s type. Luckily, the type-parameter equivalent is perfectly expressible.

## What happens when I move the existential scope?

Of course, moving the scope makes the type mean something different, which you can tell by counting how many Es there will be in a value. A PList[PList[_]] is a list of lists where each list may have a different, unknown element type, like elists. A PList[PList[E]] forSome {type E} is a list of lists where you still don’t know the inner element type, but you know it’s the same for each sublist. We can tell that because, in the expansion, there’s only one E, whereas the expansion for the former has an E introduced in each head value.

So for the latter it is type-correct to, say, move elements from one sublist to another; you know that, whichever pair of sublists you choose to make this trade, they have the same element type. But you don’t know that for PList[PList[_]].

Similarly, also by substitution, PList[_] => Int is a function that takes PLists of any element type and returns Int, like plengthE. You can figure this out by substituting for Function1#apply:

def apply(v1: T1): R
def apply(v1: PList[_]): Int


But (PList[E] => Int) forSome {type E} is a function that takes PLists of one specific element type that we don’t know.

// Let there be some unknown (abstract)
type E
// then the method is
def apply(v1: List[E]): Int


It’s easy to use existential scoping to create functions that are impossible to call and other values that are impossible to use besides functions. This is almost one of those:

def badlength: (PList[E] => Int) forSome {type E} = plengthE

TmTp5.scala:29: type mismatch;
found   : tmtp.PList[Int]
required: tmtp.PList[E] where type E
^


But in this case, there is one way we can call this function: with an empty list. Whatever the E is, it will be inferred when we call PNil(). So badlength(PNil()) works.

There is a broader theme here hinted at by the interaction between PNil and badlength: the most efficient, most easily understood way to work with values of existential type is with type-parameterized methods. But we’ll get to that later.

## Back to type members

Let us translate the working existential variant we discovered above to the PList[MList] form of the function, though. What is the existential equivalent to mlenLengthTP?

def mlenLengthTP[T](xss: PList[MList.Aux[T]]): Int =
xss match {
case PNil() => 0
case PCons(h, t) => mlength(h) + mlenLengthTP(t)
}

def mlenLength(xss: PList[MList]): Int =
mlenLengthTP(xss)

TmTp5.scala:38: type mismatch;
found   : tmtp.PList[tmtp.MList]
required: tmtp.PList[tmtp.MList.Aux[this.T]]
mlenLengthTP(xss)
^


MList is equivalent to MList {type T = E} forSome {type E}. We can prove that directly in Scala.

scala> implicitly[MList =:= (MList {type T = E} forSome {type E})]
res0: =:=[tmtp.MList,tmtp.MList{type T = E} forSome { type E }] = <function1>


That’s why we could use runStSource to infer a type parameter for the existential S in the last post: the scope is on the outside, so there’s exactly one type parameter to infer. So the scoping problem now looks very similar to the PList-in-PList problem, and we can write:

def mlenLengthE(xss: PList[MList.Aux[E]] forSome {type E})
: Int = mlenLengthTP(xss)


## A triangular generalization

Once again, mlenLengthE demands proof that each sublist of xss has the same element type, by virtue of the position of its forSome scope. We can’t satisfy that with elists.

mlenLengthE(elists)


Or, we shouldn’t be able to, anyway. Sometimes, the wrong thing happens. We get the right error when we try to invoke mlenLengthTP.

mlenLengthTP(elists)

TmTp5.scala:43: type mismatch;
found   : tmtp.PList[tmtp.MList]
required: tmtp.PList[tmtp.MList.Aux[this.T]]
(which expands to)  tmtp.PList[tmtp.MList{type T = this.T}]
mlenLengthTP(elists)
^


So we have mlenLengthE $\equiv_m$ mlenLengthTP. mlenLength, however, is incompatible with both; neither is more general than the other! What we really want is a function that is more general than all three, and subsumes all their definitions. Here it is, in two variants: one half-type-parameterized, the other wholly existential.

def mlenLengthTP2[T <: MList](xss: PList[T]): Int =
xss match {
case PNil() => 0
case PCons(h, t) => mlength(h) + mlenLengthTP2(t)
}

def mlenLengthE2(xss: PList[_ <: MList]): Int =
xss match {
case PNil() => 0
case PCons(h, t) => mlength(h) + mlenLengthTP2(t)
}


We’ve woven a tangled web, so here are, restated, the full relationships for the MList-in-PList functions above.

1. mlenLengthTP2 $\equiv_m$ mlenLengthE2
2. mlenLengthTP $\equiv_m$ mlenLengthE
3. $\neg($mlenLength $<:_m$ mlenLengthE$)$
4. $\neg($mlenLengthE $<:_m$ mlenLength$)$
5. $\neg($mlenLength $<:_m$ mlenLengthTP$)$
6. $\neg($mlenLengthTP $<:_m$ mlenLength$)$
7. mlenLengthTP2 $<_m$ mlenLengthTP
8. mlenLengthTP2 $<_m$ mlenLength
9. mlenLengthTP2 $<_m$ mlenLengthE
10. mlenLengthE2 $<_m$ mlenLengthTP
11. mlenLengthE2 $<_m$ mlenLength
12. mlenLengthE2 $<_m$ mlenLengthE

Moreover, the full existential in mlenLengthE2 is shorthand for:

PList[E] forSome {
type E <: MList {
type T = E2
} forSome {type E2}
}


…a nested existential, though not in the meaning I intend in the title of this article. You can prove it with =:=, as above.

And I say all this simply as a means of saying that this is what you’re signing up for when you decide to “simplify” your code by using type members instead of parameters and leaving off the refinements that make them concrete.

In the next part, “Values never change types”, we’ll get some idea of why working with existential types can be so full of compiler errors, especially when allowing for mutation and impure functions.