#108 sub-fold (c): opaque as a type-erasure sink. Two implicit
assignability rules + the reinterpret casts sort's impl relies on.
rule 1 `*T -> *opaque` IMPLICIT — any pointer is the universal
void-pointer. harec type_is_assignable pointer arm
(ref/harec/src/types.c:1053: `case STORAGE_OPAQUE: break;`
— the referent need not match).
rule 2 `[]T -> []opaque` IMPLICIT — any slice is the erased slice;
{ptr,len,cap} header is normal, byte stride supplied at
runtime. harec slice arm (types.c:1094).
Both fire only when the destination element is opaque, so they are
inert on the opaque-free selfhost corpus.
Rule-10 (per-rule, empirical): rules 1 & 2 are CSTAGE-ONLY. cstage
type_assignable gains the sink; the wwstage check.ww isassignable is a
resolve-only AST approximation that returns "can't tell, stay quiet"
(confident=false) for a ptr/slice whose element it cannot match, so it
already ACCEPTS every form (let-init AND call-arg). Verified: w6c_ww
compiles each probe source exit 0, byte-identically to w6c. cstage
rejected these before this change; no ww twin is needed (same
align-down precedent as 960/961's cstage-only arms).
Casts: N_CAST is validation-free in BOTH stages (the checker never
checks cast legality), so `[]opaque -> *u8` / `*opaque -> *u8`/`*i32`
are already legal. The reinterpret CGEN needed NO change: cgexpr
leaves the pointer in AX for both a slice (so slice->ptr naturally
takes .ptr) and a pointer (ptr->ptr is a no-op). drew described the
Hare idiom as `*[*]u8`; ww has no unbounded-array `[*]`, so the
ww-faithful reinterpret target is `*u8` + uintptr stride arithmetic.
cs==ww byte-id proven on every probe row.
Array->[]opaque (harec array->slice decay, types.c:1080-1099) is
deliberately EXCLUDED: ww has no implicit array->slice for any element
type (`let s: []i32 = a` is rejected too — a slice is built only via
an explicit `a[0:n]`), so there is no array->slice-header cgen.
Accepting array->[]opaque alone would assign a fat array local into a
24-byte slot with no decay: a silent miscompile (rule 7). sort's
caller passes a slice, so slice->[]opaque suffices.
opaque is unused by the bootstrap → INERT → 990-997 stay
byte-identical; combined.ww unchanged (no embedded source touched).
New probe 962_opaque_assign_cast_run carries both dimensions per row
(cstage build+run asserting type-erasure round-trips, AND a w6c-vs-
w6c_ww .s byte-id gate — the 990-997 gates never exercise opaque, so
the test pins rule-10 symmetry itself): rule1_implicit_ptr,
rule2_implicit_slice, and sort_pattern (byte-swap via uintptr stride
through []opaque, read back through the *opaque path and the original
[]i32 view). Probe binds call results before comparing to dodge a
pre-existing inline-call-result-in-comparison cgen bug (#116 family,
reproduces with zero opaque) — same dodge 960 uses.
Hojun-Cho
3a0c7442d4