Lib.delta

The delta type is declared as follows:

   datatype 'a delta = SAME | DIFF of 'a

The delta type may be used in applications where it is important to tell if a function has changed its argument or not. As an example of this, consider mapping a function over a large collection of elements. If only a few elements are changed, it makes sense to re-use all those that were not changed. This can of course be handled on an ad hoc basis; the delta type provides a mechanism for doing this systematically.