Gaster & Jones 1996 says "We consider two rows to be equivalent if they include the same fields regardless of the order in which they are listed." [section 3.2] But this is tricky: Figure 6 shows there is an ordering on labels, so that in effect records are compiled to tuples with left-to-right ordering of label names alphabetically. The User Manual says "The order of fields in a record pattern *is* significant because it determines the order---from left to right---in which they are matched." In particular, a pattern match on a record with a field value `undefined` might succeed if some other field label is mentioned first in the pattern; but throw an error if it's the undefined field's label mentioned first. It's not difficult to expose this behaviour. Consider
import Hugs.Trex
x5y = (x = 5, y = 'y'); x7y = (x = 7, y = undefined) z5y = (z = 5, y = 'y'); z7y = (z = 7, y = undefined)
x5y == x7y -- returns False z5y == z7y -- throws error Prelude.undefined
The tuples with label `z` are compiled to put that field second, regardless of the order of appearing in the expression. Then (==) applies by comparing field values in left-to-right alphabetic ordering. Field `x` is alphabetically before `y`; and the `x` values differ; so the comparison returns False without comparing the `y` values. Then in comparing the field `z` records, the `y` fields are compared first (ignoring that the `z` values differ), exposing that one `y` field is `undefined`. This is similar to comparing tuples
(5, 'y') == (7, undefined) -- returns False ('y', 5) == (undefined, 7) -- throws error
There seems to be some infelicity when building records:
f ... rho ... = (y = 'y' | rho)
This throws strange errors depending whether `rho` includes labels that are alphabetically before `y`. Bug report incoming ... AntC