Programming Flix

Type Aliases

Type aliases introduces a short-hand name for a type. For example:

///
/// A type alias for a map from keys of type `k`
/// to values of type `Result[String, v]`
///
type alias M[k, v] = Map[k, Result[String, v]]

def foo(): M[Bool, Int32] = Map#{true => Ok(123)}

A type alias does not define a new distinct type. Rather a type alias is simply a syntactic short-hand for a (usually complex) type.

The Flix compiler expands type aliases before type checking. Consequently, type errors are always reported with respect to the actual underlying types.

Note: A type alias cannot be recursively defined in terms of itself. The Flix compiler will detect and report such recursive cycles.