Why are nested brackets disallowed?
Matthew Pickering
matthewtpickering at gmail.com
Thu Jan 24 11:46:32 UTC 2019
There is a check in `RnSplice` which errors on the following program
with nested brackets.
```
prog = [| [| True |] |]
T.hs:4:11: error:
• Template Haskell brackets cannot be nested (without intervening splices)
• In the Template Haskell quotation [| True |]
In the Template Haskell quotation [| [| True |] |]
|
4 | prog = [| [| True |] |]
| ^^^^^^^^^^
```
As far as I can see the check was added in 2013 in this commit,
https://github.com/ghc/ghc/commit/d0d47ba76f8f0501cf3c4966bc83966ab38cac27#diff-58794f81a415f148d011de563988c2b5R170
But there is no note, no tests and no comment about why it was added.
I removed the check and added a `BracketE` constructor to the
template-haskell AST and the
code compiles fine.
I can also construct a program which needs to be spliced twice and
this also works fine.
```
func Add = [| (+) |]
func Mul = [| (*) |]
f1 "+" = [| Add |]
f1 "*" = [| Mul |]
comb s = [| func $(f1 s) |]
```
```
res = $($(comb "*"))
```
So it seems the restriction is quite arbitrary but I was wondering if
I was missing some limitation which meant this check was added. I
would not be surprised if something more complicated goes wrong with
splicing.
Cheers,
Matt
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