5.3 Limitations of the current implementation

The implementation of the mode analysis algorithm is not quite complete; as a result, it is not possible to use nested unique modes, i.e. modes in which anything but the top level of a variable is unique. If you do, you will get unique mode errors when you try to get a unique field of a unique data structure. It is also not possible to use unique-input modes; only destructive-input and unique-output modes work.

The Mercury compiler does not (yet) reuse dead values. The only destructive update in the current implementation occurs in library modules, e.g. for I/O and arrays. We do however plan to implement structure reuse and compile-time garbage collection in the future.