Will Jones wrote:
 > f :: Int -> IO ()
 > f = undefined

 > g :: Int -> Int -> IO ()
 > g = undefined

 > h :: Int -> Int -> Int -> IO ()
 > h = undefined

vtuple f :: IO (Int -> (Int, ()))
vtuple g :: IO (Int -> Int -> (Int, (Int, ())))

I've tried to type vtuple using a type class; [...]

I've thought about it and it seems impossible to solve this problem
-- you keep needing to ``split'' the function type one arrow further on.

So you need to use recursion to handle the arbitrary deeply nested
arrows in the type of vtuple's argument. I tried it with type families,
but I don't see a reason why functional dependencies should not work.

    {-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances, TypeFamilies #-}
    module VTupleWithTypeFamilies where

We use two type families to handle the two places where the result type
of vtuple changes for different argument types.

    type family F a
    type family G a r

So the intention is that the type of vtuple is as follows.

    class VTuple a where
      vtuple :: a -> IO (G a (F a))

The base case:

    type instance F (IO ())   = ()
    type instance G (IO ()) r = r

    instance VTuple (IO ()) where
      vtuple = undefined

And the step case:

    type instance F (a -> b)   = (a, F b)
    type instance G (a -> b) r = a -> G b r

    instance VTuple b => VTuple (a -> b) where
      vtuple = undefined

A test case:

    f :: Int -> Bool -> Char -> Double -> IO ()
    f = undefined

    test = do
      vt <- vtuple f
      return (vt 5 True 'x' 1.3)

Testing it with ghci yields the following type for test, which looks
good to me.

    test :: IO (Int, (Bool, (Char, (Double, ()))))

HTH, Tillmann

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