On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 9:36 AM, Wolfgang Jeltsch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Am Dienstag, 23. September 2008 18:19 schrieben Sie: >> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 6:07 PM, Wolfgang Jeltsch >> >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > Hello, >> > >> > please consider the following code: >> >> {-# LANGUAGE GADTs, MultiParamTypeClasses, FunctionalDependencies #-} >> >> >> >> data GADT a where >> >> >> >> GADT :: GADT () >> >> >> >> class Class a b | a -> b >> >> >> >> instance Class () () >> >> >> >> fun :: (Class a b) => GADT a -> b >> >> fun GADT = () >> > >> > I'd expect this to work but unfortunately, using GHC 6.8.2, it fails with >> > the following message: >> >> bear in mind that the only instance you defined is >> >> instance Class () () >> >> which doesn't involve your GADT at all. > > This is correct. (It's only a trimmed-down example, after all.) > >> Maybe you meant something like: >> >> instance Class (GADT a) () > > No, I didn't. > >> Moreover, your fun cannot typecheck, regardless of using MPTC or >> GADTs. The unit constructor, (), has type () and not b. > > Pattern matching against the data constructor GADT specializes a to (). Since > Class uses a functional dependency, it is clear that b has to be (). So it > should typecheck. At least, I want it to. ;-)
In the signature: fun :: (Class a b) => GADT a -> b What is there to determine the type a? It's a phantom in the definition of GADT, so it can unify arbitrarily for us, but there is nothing in your program to cause it to unify a certain way. Based on what you're hoping for, I think you would need: class Class a b | b -> a But, then think about how the type checker looks at fun, which returns (). Now we see that b should be (), but () is not the same as b. That is, () does not generalize to b, even though an arbitrary b could specialize to (). Did some other version of ghc accept this code? Jason _______________________________________________ Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list Glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users