Limitations of let rec in OCaml

Question

I\'m studying OCaml these days and came across this:

OCaml has limits on what it can put on the righthand side of a let rec. Like this one

let memo_rec f         


        

Answer 1

You can use tying-the-knot techniques to define memoizing fixpoints. See for example those two equivalent definitions:

let fix_memo f =
  let rec g = {contents = fixpoint}
  and fixpoint x = f !g x in
  g := memoize !g;
  !g

let fix_memo f =
  let g = ref (fun _ -> assert false) in
  g := memoize (fun x -> f !g x);
  !g

Or using lazy as reminded by Alain:

let fix_memo f =
  let rec fix = lazy (memoize (fun x -> f (Lazy.force fix) x)) in
  Lazy.force fix

Answer 2

This is clearly explained in section of Memoization and Dynamic Programming in https://realworldocaml.org/v1/en/html/imperative-programming-1.html

Answer 3

The kind of expressions that are allowed to be bound by let rec are described in section 7.3 of the manual. Specifically, function applications involving the let rec defined names are not allowed.

A rough summary (taken from that very link):

Informally, the class of accepted definitions consists of those definitions where the defined names occur only inside function bodies or as argument to a data constructor.