Fl4m3Ph03n1x

Fl4m3Ph03n1x

Background

I have a very minimalistic function that can return a boolean or blow up:

defmodule TestDialzer do

  @spec hello(integer) :: boolean
  def hello(n) do

    if n == 10 do
      true
    else
      raise "This is not a number!"
    end

  end
end

As you can see, this function can return a boolean. But it can also not return one. Dialyzer is not picking this up:

Starting Dialyzer
[
  check_plt: false,
  init_plt: '/home/pedro/Workplace/test_dialzer/_build/dev/dialyxir_erlang-23.3_elixir-1.12.0_deps-dev.plt',
  files: ['/home/pedro/Workplace/test_dialzer/_build/dev/lib/test_dialzer/ebin/Elixir.TestDialzer.beam'],
  warnings: [:unknown]
]
Total errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Unnecessary Skips: 0
done in 0m0.77s
done (passed successfully)

My spec is incomplete and I expected dialyzer to fail with some kind of error / warning.

Questions

Why is dialyzer not complaining? (rare thing to ask, I know)

Most Liked

kokolegorille

kokolegorille

I had a similar question…

al2o3cr

al2o3cr

A function can be specced as no_return, but that’s only applicable if it never returns a value.

Otherwise the “can fail” is implied for all functions - for instance, :math.sqrt/1 has a spec of sqrt(number) :: float, but it gives an ArithmeticError when called with a negative input.

kokolegorille

kokolegorille

The solution proposed was to have smaller functions with correct type…

For example, hello_success and hello_error, of type boolean.

Last Post!

Fl4m3Ph03n1x

Fl4m3Ph03n1x OP

defmodule TestDialzer do

  @spec hello(integer) :: boolean
  def hello(n) do

    if n == 10 do
      hello_success()
    else
      hello_error()
    end

  end

  @spec test_hello_1 :: boolean
  def test_hello_1, do: hello(10)

  @spec test_hello_2 :: boolean
  def test_hello_2, do: hello(1)

  @spec hello_success :: true
  defp hello_success, do: true

  # This is clearly wrong, yet no complaining =(
  @spec hello_error :: boolean
  defp hello_error, do: raise "This is not a number!"

end

I am quite lost here. Dialyzer is not picking up that hello_error has an wrong spec.

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