(p.s. these links are just to satisfy extra-curious readers - no criticism is intended! I add this because people sometimes assume otherwise)
noitpmeder•about 1 hour ago
This reminds me a bit of a recent publication by Stroustrup about using concepts... in C++ to validate integer conversions automatically where necessary.
{
Number<unsigned int> ii = 0;
Number<char> cc = '0';
ii = 2; // OK
ii = -2; // throws
cc = i; // OK if i is within cc’s range
cc = -17; // OK if char is signed; otherwise throws
cc = 1234; // throws if a char is 8 bits
}
jaggederest•about 2 hours ago
You can go even further with this in other languages, with things like dependent typing - which can assert (among other interesting properties) that, for example, something like
get_elem_at_index(array, index)
cannot ever have index outside the bounds of the array, but checked statically at compilation time - and this is the key, without knowing a priori what the length of array is.
"In Idris, a length-indexed vector is Vect n a (length n is in the type), and a valid index into length n is Fin n ('a natural number strictly less than n')."
Similar tricks work with division that might result in inf/-inf, to prevent them from typechecking, and more subtle implications in e.g. higher order types and functions
VorpalWay•about 1 hour ago
How does that work? If the length of the array is read from stdin for example, it would be impossible to know it at compile time. Presumably this is limited somehow?
marcosdumay•about 1 hour ago
If you check that the value is inside the range, and execute some different code if it's not, then congratulations, you now know at compile time that the number you will read from stdin is in the right range.
mdm12•about 1 hour ago
One option is dependent pairs, where one value of the pair (in this example) would be the length of the array and the other value is a type which depends on that same value (such as Vector n T instead of List T).
Type-Driven Development with Idris[1] is a great introduction for dependently typed languages and covers methods such as these if you're interested (and Edwin Brady is a great teacher).
Not sure about Idris, but in Lean `Fin n` is a struct that contains a value `i` and a proof that `i < n`. You can read in the value `n` from stdin and then you can do `if h : i < n` to have a compile-time proof `h` that you can use to construct a `Fin n` instance.
ratorx•about 1 hour ago
It doesn’t have to be a compile time constant. An alternative is to prove that when you are calling the function the index is always less than the size of the vector (a dynamic constraint). You may be able to assert this by having a separate function on the vector that returns a constrained value (eg. n < v.len()).
jaggederest•about 1 hour ago
If the length is read from outside the program it's an IO operation, not a static variable, but there are generally runtime checks in addition to the type system. Usually you solve this as in the article, with a constructor that checks it - so you'd have something like "Invalid option: length = 5 must be within 0-4" when you tried to create the Fin n from the passed in value
esafak•24 minutes ago
I wish dependent types were more common :(
cmovq•about 2 hours ago
Dividing a float by zero is usually perfectly valid. It has predictable outputs, and for some algorithms like collision detection this property is used to remove branches.
woodruffw•about 1 hour ago
I think “has predictable outputs” is less valuable than “has expected outputs” for most workloads. Dividing by zero almost always reflects an unintended state, so proceeding with the operation means compounding the error state.
(This isn’t to say it’s always wrong, but that having it be an error state by default seems very reasonable to me.)
cmovq•about 1 hour ago
It’s more so that dividing by zero is not an error in IEE754, so it would be more unexpected to have your float divide operator return a Option<f32>
Discussion (8 Comments)
also:
Parse, Don’t Validate – Some C Safety Tips - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44507405 - July 2025 (73 comments)
Parse, Don't Validate (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41031585 - July 2024 (102 comments)
Parse, don't validate (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35053118 - March 2023 (219 comments)
Parse, Don't Validate (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27639890 - June 2021 (270 comments)
Parsix: Parse Don't Validate - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27166162 - May 2021 (107 comments)
Parse, Don’t Validate - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21476261 - Nov 2019 (230 comments)
Parse, Don't Validate - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21471753 - Nov 2019 (4 comments)
(p.s. these links are just to satisfy extra-curious readers - no criticism is intended! I add this because people sometimes assume otherwise)
https://www.stroustrup.com/Concept-based-GP.pdf
"In Idris, a length-indexed vector is Vect n a (length n is in the type), and a valid index into length n is Fin n ('a natural number strictly less than n')."
Similar tricks work with division that might result in inf/-inf, to prevent them from typechecking, and more subtle implications in e.g. higher order types and functions
Type-Driven Development with Idris[1] is a great introduction for dependently typed languages and covers methods such as these if you're interested (and Edwin Brady is a great teacher).
[1] https://www.manning.com/books/type-driven-development-with-i...
(This isn’t to say it’s always wrong, but that having it be an error state by default seems very reasonable to me.)