[isabelle-dev] "Exception." fun oddity in Isabelle 2009-2

[Lucas Dixon]

Hi,

While playing around with a robotic horror that throw strange monsters 
at the function package, I came across this rather strange error...

*** start of theory ***
theory fun_def_oddity
imports Main
begin

datatype Ta = C_2 "nat" "nat" | C_1 "Ta" "nat"

fun f where
   "f (C_2 a b) c = c"
| "f (C_1 a b) c = f a (f a (f a (f (C_1 a b) b)))"

(* ... after a long time...

constants
   f :: "Ta ⇒ nat ⇒ nat"
Exception.
At command "fun".
*)

end;
*** end of theory ***

Now I know this isn't a good looking function, but the error message 
seems somewhat odd.

My guess is that some accidental infinite loop makes something bad 
happen at a low level... but I've ever seen the "Exception." things 
before, so I'm not too sure what to do next.

Moreover, (and importantly for me) when I'm calling this from ML, I'm 
not sure how to catch the resulting error, it seems to be skipping past 
my attempts to handle it. Any thoughts?

cheers,
lucas

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