[MLton] Re: Type of _address?

[Matthew Fluet]

> I am considering changing the _address syntax from:
>       _address "x": MLton.Pointer.t;
> to:   _address "x": MLton.Pointer.t, int;
>
> My reason for this is that I recall doing an 'extern foo;' caused trouble on
> hppa for profiling. I wonder if it will cause trouble in this case too...
> (ie: a char* pointer differs from an int* pointer)

That seems to make sense.  OTOH, the point of importing an address without 
the pointed-to type information is that one could then use arbitrary 
MLton.Pointer.{get,set}* functions on it.  The disconcerting bit is that 
the pointed-to type will now have absolutely no influence on the 
elaborated type.

> > However, it means I would have to completely break _import #, not just issue
> > a deprecated warning if I require that extern x; always have a type.
> 
> Err - rather, I just made _import # use CType.Pointer.

I think that is fine.  In fact, since _import # has never been a 
documented feature, then I think we could safely just drop it without 
going through deprecation.