[CLJ-701] Compiler loses 'loop's return type in some cases

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:42:00 -0500

(set! *warn-on-reflection* true)
(fn [] (loop [b 0] (recur (loop [a 1] a))))

Generates the following warnings:

recur arg for primitive local: b is not matching primitive, had: Object, needed: long
Auto-boxing loop arg: b

This is interesting for several reasons. For one, if the arg to recur is a let form, there is no warning:

(fn [] (loop [b 0] (recur (let [a 1] a))))

Also, the compiler appears to understand the return type of loop forms just fine:

(use '[clojure.contrib.repl-utils :only [expression-info]])
(expression-info '(loop [a 1] a))
;=> {:class long, :primitive? true}

The problem can of course be worked around using an explicit cast on the loop form:

(fn [] (loop [b 0] (recur (long (loop [a 1] a)))))

Clojure JIRA