Hi all,
I am trying to get a GHC rewrite rule that specialises a function
according to the type of the argument of the function. Does anybody know
whether it is possible to do that not with a concrete type but rather a
type class?
Consider the following example:
> class A a where
> toInt :: a -> Int
> {-# NOINLINE toInt #-}
> class B a where
> toInt' :: a -> Int
The idea is to use the method of type class A unless the type is also an
instance of type class B. Let's say that Bool is an instance of both A
and B:
> instance A Bool where
> toInt True = 1
> toInt False = 0
> instance B Bool where
> toInt' True = 0
> toInt' False = 1
Now we add a rule that says that if the argument to "toInt" happens to
be an instance of type class B as well, use the method "toInt'" instead:
> {-# RULES
> "toInt" forall (x :: B a => a) . toInt x = toInt' x
> #-}
Unfortunately, this does not work (neither with GHC 6.12 or GHC 7.0).
Expression "toInt True" gets evaluated to "1". If the rewrite rule is
written with a concrete type it works as expected:
> {-# RULES
> "toInt" forall (x :: Bool) . toInt x = toInt' x
> #-}
Now "toInt True" is evaluated to "0".
Am I doing something wrong or is it not possible for GHC to dispatch a
rule according to type class constraints?
Thanks,
Patrick
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