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Author: nikomatsakis

active/0000-restore-int-fallback.md

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+- Start Date: (fill me in with today's date, YYYY-MM-DD)
+- RFC PR: (leave this empty)
+- Rust Issue: (leave this empty)
+
+# Summary
+
+Restore the integer inference fallback that was removed. Integer
+literals whose type is unconstrained will default to `int`, as before.
+Floating point literals will default to `f64`.
+
+# Motivation
+
+## History lesson
+
+Rust has had a long history with integer and floating-point
+literals. Initial versions of Rust required *all* literals to be
+explicitly annotated with a suffix (if no suffix is provided, then
+`int` or `float` was used; note that the `float` type has since been
+removed). This meant that, for example, if one wanted to count up all
+the numbers in a list, one would write `0u` and `1u` so as to employ
+unsigned integers:
+
+    let mut count = 0u; // let `count` be an unsigned integer
+    while cond() {
+        ...
+        count += 1u;    // `1u` must be used as well
+    }
+
+This was particularly troublesome with arrays of integer literals,
+which could be quite hard to read:
+
+    let byte_array = [0u8, 33u8, 50u8, ...];
+    
+It also meant that code which was very consciously using 32-bit or
+64-bit numbers was hard to read.
+
+Therefore, we introduced integer inference: unlabeled integer literals
+are not given any particular integral type rather a fresh "integral
+type variable" (floating point literals work in an analogous way). The
+idea is that the vast majority of literals will eventually interact
+with an actual typed variable at some point, and hence we can infer
+what type they ought to have. For those cases where the type cannot be
+automatically selected, we decided to fallback to our older behavior,
+and have integer/float literals be typed as `int`/`float` (this is also what Haskell
+does). Some time later, we did [various measurements][m] and found
+that in real world code this fallback was rarely used. Therefore, we
+decided that to remove the fallback.
+
+## Experience with lack of fallback
+
+Unfortunately, when doing the measurements that led us to decide to
+remove the `int` fallback, we neglected to consider coding "in the
+small" (specifically, we did not include tests in the
+measurements). It turns out that when writing small programs, which
+includes not only "hello world" sort of things but also tests, the
+lack of integer inference fallback is quite annoying. This is
+particularly troublesome since small program are often people's first
+exposure to Rust. The problems most commonly occur when integers are
+"consumed" by printing them out to the screen or by asserting
+equality, both of which are very common in small programs and testing.
+
+There are at least three common scenarios where fallback would be
+beneficial:
+
+**Accumulator loops.** Here a counter is initialized to `0` and then
+incremented by `1`. Eventually it is printed or compared against
+a known value.
+
+```
+let mut c = 0;
+loop {
+    ...;
+    c += 1;
+}
+println!("{}", c); // Does not constrain type of `c`
+assert_eq(c, 22);
+```
+
+**Calls to range with constant arguments.** Here a call to range like
+`range(0, 10)` is used to execute something 10 times. It is important
+that the actual counter is either unused or only used in a print out
+or comparison against another literal:
+
+```
+for _ in range(0, 10) {
+}
+```
+
+**Large constants.** In small tests it is convenient to make dummy
+test data. This frequently takes the form of a vector or map of ints.
+
+```
+let mut m = HashMap::new();
+m.insert(1, 2);
+m.insert(3, 4);
+assert_eq(m.find(&3).map(|&i| i).unwrap(), 4);
+```
+
+## Lack of bugs
+
+To our knowledge, there has not been a single bug exposed by removing
+the fallback to the `int` type. Moreover, such bugs seem to be
+extremely unlikely.
+
+The primary reason for this is that, in production code, the `int`
+fallback is very rarely used. In a sense, the same [measurements][m]
+that were used to justify removing the `int` fallback also justify
+keeping it. As the measurements showed, the vast, vast majority of
+integer literals wind up with a constrained type, unless they are only
+used to print out and do assertions with. Specifically, any integer
+that is passed as a parameter, returned from a function, or stored in
+a struct or array, must wind up with a specific type.
+
+Another secondary reason is that the lint which checks that literals
+are suitable for their assigned type will catch cases where very large
+literals were used that overflow the `int` type (for example,
+`INT_MAX`+1). (Note that the overflow lint constraints `int` literals
+to 32 bits for better portability.)
+
+In almost all of common cases we described above, there exists *some*
+large constant representing a bound. If this constant exceeds the
+range of the chosen fallback type, then a `type_overflow` lint warning
+would be triggered. For example, in the accumulator, if the
+accumulated result `i` is compared using a call like `assert_eq(i,
+22)`, then the constant `22` will be linted. Similarly, when invoking
+range with unconstrained arguments, the arguments to range are linted.
+And so on.
+
+The only common case where the lint does not apply is when an
+accumulator result is only being printed to the screen or otherwise
+consumed by some generic function which never stores it to memory.
+This is a very narrow case.
+
+## Future-proofing for overloaded literals
+
+It is possible that, in the future, we will wish to allow vector and
+strings literals to be overloaded so that they can be resolved to
+user-defined types. In that case, for backwards compatibility, it will
+be necessary for those literals to have some sort of fallback type.
+(This is a relatively weak consideration.)
+
+# Detailed design
+
+Integeral literals are currently type-checked by creating a special
+class of type variable. These variables are subject to unification as
+normal, but can only unify with integral types. This RFC proposes
+that, at the end of type inference, when all constraints are known, we
+will identify all integral type variables that have not yet been bound
+to anything and bind them to `int`. Similarly, floating point literals
+will fallback to `f64`.
+
+For those who wish to be very careful about which integral types they
+employ, a new lint (`unconstrained_literal`) will be added which
+defaults to `allow`. This lint is triggered whenever the type of an
+integer or floating point literal is unconstrained.
+
+# Downsides
+
+Although we give a detailed argument for why bugs are unlikely, it is
+nonetheless possible that this choice will lead to bugs in some code,
+since another choice (most likely `uint`) may have been more suitable.
+
+Given that the size of `int` is platform dependent, it is possible
+that a porting hazard is created. This is mitigated by the fact that
+the `type_overflow` lint constraints `int` literals to 32 bits.
+
+# Alternatives
+
+- **No fallback.** Status quo.
+
+- **Fallback to something else.** We could potentially fallback to
+  `i32` or some other integral type rather than `int`.
+  
+- **Fallback in a more narrow range of cases.** We could attempt to
+  identify integers that are "only printed" or "only compared". There
+  is no concrete proposal in this direction and it seems to lead to an
+  overly complicated design.
+  
+- **Default type parameters influencing inference.** There is a
+  separate, follow-up proposal being prepared that uses default type
+  parameters to influence inference. This would allow some examples,
+  like `range(0, 10)` to work even without integral fallback, because
+  the `range` function itself could specify a fallback type. However,
+  this does not help with many other examples.
+  
+[m]: https://gist.github.com/nikomatsakis/11179747