question about GHC API on GHC plugin

[Mike Izbicki]

I've figured out a hack that partially works.  If the Name of the
function I'm trying to call is stored in `name`, then the following
code puts its type in `t`:
```
hscenv <- getHscEnv
t <- liftIO $ do
    eps <- hscEPS hscenv
    let i = fromJust $ lookupNameEnv (eps_PTE eps) name
    return varType i
```
This, however, only works if the function has actually been used in
the module before.  That makes it more fragile than I'd like.

Also, once I have the type `t`, I'm having trouble creating the
appropriate dictionary to pass as the first argument in core.  I can
get the name of the class constraint doing something like:
```
let (ClassPred c _) = classifyPredType . snd . splitAppTy . fst .
splitAppTy $ dropForAlls t
```
But I can't find a function for creating a dictionary (of type Var)
given a Class.

On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 3:40 PM, Mike Izbicki <mike at izbicki.me> wrote:
> I'm trying to write a GHC plugin.  The purpose of the plugin is to
> provide Haskell bindings to Herbie. Herbie
> (https://github.com/uwplse/herbie) is a program that takes a
> mathematical statement as input, and gives you a numerically stable
> formula to compute it as output.  The plugin is supposed to automate
> this process for Haskell programs.
>
> I can convert the core expressions into a format for Herbie just fine.
> Where I'm having trouble is converting the output from Herbie back
> into core.  Given a string that represents a numeric operator (e.g.
> "log" or "+"), I can get that converted into a Name that matches the
> Name of the version of that operator in scope at the location.  But in
> order to create an Expr, I need to convert the Name into a Var.  All
> the functions that I can find for this (e.g. mkGlobalVar) also require
> the type of the variable.  But I can't find a way to figure out the
> Type given a Name.  How can I do this?