leanprover / leanprover/lean4

anonymous ctor notation fails on constructors of type families with explicit params

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Lean
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Description

Prerequisites

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Description

The anonymous constructor notation ⟨...⟩ fails to pass parameters to the constructor when the constructor requires that parameters be passed explicitly.

Steps to Reproduce
inductive Pointed : Type → Type
  | mk α : α → Pointed α

example : Pointed Bool := ⟨false⟩
example : Pointed (String × Nat) := ⟨"", 0⟩

Expected behavior: The code should succeed with no errors, as it does when α is an implicit parameter to mk.

Actual behavior: The code results in the following errors:

application type mismatch
  Pointed.mk false
argument
  false
has type
  Bool : Type
but is expected to have type
  Type : Type 1

invalid constructor ⟨...⟩, expected type must be an inductive type 
  Type
Versions

Lean 4.16.0-nightly-2025-01-06
Appears in Lean 4.0.0-m5, though I did not check before this.

Impact

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Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by running the minimal Pointed examples from the issue against the reported Lean nightly version and compare them with constructors whose parameters are implicit. Trace the anonymous constructor notation elaboration and ensure explicit constructor parameters are handled so both examples compile without errors.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
compilers
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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