(doc Opaque "The opaque type is an uninhabited type with no constructors. Opaque can be used to force some abstract type to range over a type constructor without concerning oneself with the inhabitant of the constructor. It may be used to enable a type to work for all inhabitants and can facillitate generic programming. Consider an example: ``` ;; The type of indicies over containers of a single type argument (deftype (Index (f Opaque) b) [at b]) (definterface tabulate (Fn [(Ref (Fn [(Index (f Opaque) b)] c))] (f c))) (definterface positions (f (Index (f Opaque) b))) (implements tabulate tabulate) (defn tabulate [h] (fmap h @&positions)) (deftype (Tuple a) [x a y a]) (defmodule Tuple (sig positions (Tuple (Index (Tuple Opaque) Bool))) (def positions (Tuple.init (Index.init true) (Index.init false))) ) ``` In the above example, the Opaque type allows us to define tabulate generically over Tuples without having to ensure their inhabitants match. The result of tabulate is fully determined by the Index passed to it, which determines the constructor that will be used, and the return type of its function argument. Without Opaque, Index would contain a generic type which would be unreseolved upon the call to `tabulate` and Carp would have no means of determining which implementation of `positions` to use (unless we used a `the` declaration or a similar mechanism). Opaque allows us to ensure the `positions` we call are the positions of the correct constructor type `f` wihtout having to restrict ourselves to only calling `Indexes` over an `f` with a specific inhabitant type (e.g. `(f a)`)--in other words, it allows us to constrain functions by constructor types only. Thanks to Opaque, tabulate can generate an `(Array Int)`, `(Array Bool)`, `(Array String)`, `(Maybe Bool)`, etc. all solely dependent on the return type of `h` and the `f` in the given `Index`. ") (deftype Opaque)