This code
{-# LANGUAGE GADTs #-}
data Expr a where
Val :: Num a => a -> Expr a
Eq :: Eq a => Expr a -> Expr a -> Expr Bool
eval :: Expr a -> a
eval (Val x) = x
eval (Eq x y) = (eval x) == (eval y)
instance Show a => Show (Expr a) where
show (Val x) = "Val " ++ (show x)
show (Eq x y) = "Eq (" ++ (show y) ++ ") (" ++ (show x) ++ ")"
fails to compile with the following error message:
Test.hs:13:32: error:
* Could not deduce (Show a1) arising from a use of `show'
from the context: Show a
bound by the instance declaration at test.hs:11:10-32
or from: (a ~ Bool, Eq a1)
bound by a pattern with constructor:
Eq :: forall a. Eq a => Expr a -> Expr a -> Expr Bool,
in an equation for `show'
at test.hs:13:11-16
Possible fix:
add (Show a1) to the context of the data constructor `Eq'
* In the first argument of `(++)', namely `(show y)'
In the second argument of `(++)', namely
`(show y) ++ ") (" ++ (show x) ++ ")"'
In the expression: "Eq (" ++ (show y) ++ ") (" ++ (show x) ++ ")" Failed, modules loaded: none.
Commenting out the last line fixes the issue and inspecting the type of Expr
in GHCi reveals, that, instead of inferring Eq
to be of type Eq a => (Expr a) -> (Expr a) -> Expr Bool
, GHC actually infers it to be Eq a1 => (Expr a1) -> (Expr a1) -> Expr Bool
for
data Expr a where ...
. This explains the error message, since instance Show a => Show (Expr a) where ...
won't enforce a1
to be an instance of Show
.
However I do not understand, why GHC chooses to do so. If I had to make a guess, I'd say it has something to do with Eq
returning a value, that doesn't depend on a
at all and thus GHC "forgetting" about a
, once Eq
returns a Expr Bool
. Is this - at least sort of - what is happening here?
Also, is there a clean solution to this? I tried several things, including trying to "force" the desired type via InstanceSigs
and ScopedTypeVariables
doing something like this:
instance Show a => Show (Expr a) where
show :: forall a. Eq a => Expr a -> String
show (Eq x y) = "Eq (" ++ (show (x :: Expr a)) ++ ") (" ++ (show (y :: Expr a)) ++ ")"
...
, but with no success. And since I'm still a Haskell novice, I'm not even sure, if this could somehow work anyways, due to my initial guess why GHC doesn't infer the "correct"/desired type in the first place.
EDIT:
Ok, so I decided to add a function
extract (Eq x _) = x
to the file (without a type signature), just to see, what return type it would have. GHC again refused to compile, but this time, the error message contained some information about skolem type variables. A quick search yielded this question, which (I think?) formalizes, what I believe the issue to be: Once Eq :: Expr a -> Expr a -> Expr Bool
returns a Expr Bool
, a
goes "out of scope". Now we don't have any information left about a
, so extract
would have to have the signature exists a. Expr Bool -> a
, since forall a. Expr Bool -> a
won't be true for every a
. But because GHC doesn't support exists
, type-checking fails.
One option is not requiring a
Show a
superconstraint.Of course this somewhat kicks the stone down the road, because now you can not write
anymore – now the leaf-value is not
Show
constrained. But here you can hack your way around this by making theNum
constraint a bit stronger:Well, that is a big hack, and at that point you might as well use simply
(or whatever other single type best fits your number requirements). That's not a good solution.
To retain the ability to store numbers of any type in
Expr
leaves, yet be able to constrain them toShow
if desired, you need to be polymorphic on the constraint.Then you can do