On Tue, 2008-08-05 at 20:28 +0100, Andrew Coppin wrote:
> Suppose we have the following:
>
> data Foo x
> list_foo :: [x] -> Foo x
> foo_list :: Foo x -> [x]
>
> What would be the best way to write a Show instance?
>
> The thing that I came up with is
>
> instance (Show x) => Show (Foo x) where
> show foo = "list_foo " ++ show (foo_list foo)
>
> But apparently you're supposed to use the strange "showsPrec" method
> that I don't understand. So can somebody show me a correct instance
> definition for this type please?
instance Show x => Show (Foo x) where
showsPrec n foo = ("list_foo "++) . shows (foo_list foo)
You use the n parameter if you've got an infix operator in your syntax
and you want to put parentheses around an instance of it if n has the
wrong value (either too high or too low, I can never remember).
jcc
_______________________________________________
Haskell-Cafe mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
