[Haskell-beginners] Re: Classes in Polymorphic Constructors

[Ertugrul Soeylemez]

John Smith <voldermort at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Why can polymorphic data constructors not be instantiated as a class?
> (not sure if I used the right terminology there)
>
> For example,
>
> a = [1,True]::[Show]
> b = "foo":a
> c = map show b
>
> This would obviate the need for wrapper types

Your type signature doesn't make sense.  You are confusing type classes
with types.  Show is a type class.

As far as I see, you will need a wrapper type:

  data Object = forall a. Show a => Object { unObject :: a }

  a = [Object 1, Object True]
  b = Object "foo" : a
  c = map (show . unObject) b

I have not tested this code, though.  At least I can get the following
list to type-check (using RankNTypes and ImpredicativeTypes extensions):

  [1,2,3] :: [forall a. Num a => a]

but I can't use it in any way.  And somehow I also can't mix data types
here.


Greets,
Ertugrul


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