[Haskell-beginners] I have a question in designing a 'show' function

清羽 1625143974 at qq.com
Wed Apr 4 06:37:13 UTC 2018


here is the question:

Write a function showAreaOfCircle which, given the radius of a circle, calculates the area of the circle,
<code>showAreaOfCircle 12.3</code>  ⇒ <code>"The area of a circle with radius 12.3cm is about 475.2915525615999 cm^2"</code>
my solution is:
showAreaOfCircle :: Show a => a -> String showAreaOfCircle x = "The area of a circle with radius" ++ show x ++ "is about" ++ " " + show(pi * x * x) ++ "cm^2"
but there is an error

• Could not deduce (Num a) arising from a use of ‘*’
from the context: Show a
bound by the type signature for:
showAreaOfCircle :: forall a. Show a => a -> String
at FirstStep.hs:20:1-41
Possible fix:
add (Num a) to the context of 
the type signature for:
showAreaOfCircle :: forall a. Show a => a -> String
• In the first argument of ‘show’, namely ‘(pi * x * x)’
In the second argument of ‘(+)’, namely ‘show (pi * x * x)’
In the second argument of ‘(++)’, namely ‘" " + show (pi * x * x)’

I had tried to change the type declaration to 
Show a => Num a => a -> String
i guess there must be a problem with pi.

Can someone help me with the error message? Great thanks
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