F# Units of measure, problems with genericity

Question

(I'm still banging on with units of measure in F#)

I'm having a problem making 'generic' functions which take 'typed' floats.

The following mockup class is intended to keep tabs on a cumulative error in position, based on a factor 'c'. The compiler doesn't like me saying 0.<'a> in the body of the type ("Unexpected type parameter in unit-of-measure literal").

///Corrects cumulative error in position based on s and c
type Corrector(s_init:float<'a>) =
    let deltaS ds c = sin (ds / c) //incremental error function

    //mutable values
    let mutable nominal_s = s_init
    let mutable error_s = 0.<'a>  //<-- COMPILER NO LIKE

    ///Set new start pos and reset error to zero
    member sc.Reset(s) = 
        nominal_s <- s
        error_s <- 0.<'a>  //<-- COMPILER NO LIKE

    ///Pass in new pos and c to corrector, returns corrected s and current error    
    member sc.Next(s:float<'a>, c:float<'a>) = 
        let ds = s - nominal_s //distance since last request
        nominal_s <- s   //update nominal s
        error_s <- error_s + (deltaS ds c) //calculate cumulative error
        (nominal_s + error_s, error_s) //pass back tuple

---

Another related question, I believe, still to do with 'generic' functions.

In the following code, what I am trying to do is make a function which will take a #seq of any type of floats and apply it to a function which only accepts 'vanilla' floats. The third line gives a 'Value Restriction' error, and I can't see any way out. (Removing the # solves the problem, but I'd like to avoid having to write the same thing for lists, seqs, arrays etc.)

[<Measure>] type km //define a unit of measure
let someFloatFn x = x + 1.2 //this is a function which takes 'vanilla' floats
let MapSeqToNonUnitFunction (x:#seq<float<'a>>) = Seq.map (float >> someFloatFn) x
let testList = [ 1 .. 4 ] |> List.map float |> List.map ((*) 1.0<km>)
MapSeqToNonUnitFunction testList

Answer 1

Units of measure cannot be used as type parameters. This is because the are erased by the compiler during compilation. This question is quite similar: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/419521/f-units-of-measure-lifting-values-to-floatsomething

Answer 2

You can change the first 'compiler no like' to

let mutable error_s : float<'a> = 0.0<_>

and the compiler seems to like that.

As for the second question, I am not seeing the same error as you, and this

[<Measure>] type km 
//define a unit of measure
let someFloatFn x = x + 1.2 //this is a function which takes 'vanilla' floats
let MapSeqToNonUnitFunction (x:seq<float<_>>) = Seq.map (float >> someFloatFn) x
let testList = [ 1 .. 4 ] |> List.map float |> List.map ((*) 1.0<km>)
let testList2 = testList :> seq<_>
let result = MapSeqToNonUnitFunction testList2
printfn "%A" result

compiles for me (though the upcast to seq<_> is a little annoying, I am not sure if there is an easy way to get rid of it or not).

Aside, I think convention is to name units parameters 'u, 'v, ... rather than 'a, 'b, ...