[GHC] #1776: type families : couldn't match type "Elem a" against type "Elem a"

[GHC]

#1776: type families : couldn't match type "Elem a" against type "Elem a"
-------------------------------------+---------------------------------
        Reporter:  guest             |         Owner:  chak
            Type:  bug               |        Status:  closed
        Priority:  normal            |     Milestone:
       Component:  Compiler          |       Version:  6.8
      Resolution:  fixed             |      Keywords:
Operating System:  Unknown/Multiple  |  Architecture:  Unknown/Multiple
       Test Case:                    |
-------------------------------------+---------------------------------

Comment (by Thomas Miedema <thomasmiedema@…>):

 In [changeset:"bcfae08c0be0fa8604e2025733dfae57e37c2083/ghc"
 bcfae08c/ghc]:
 {{{
 #!CommitTicketReference repository="ghc"
 revision="bcfae08c0be0fa8604e2025733dfae57e37c2083"
 Pretty: fix potential bad formatting of error message (#10735)

 This is a backport of a bug fix by Benedikt Huber for the same problem
 in the pretty library (#1337), from commit
 8d8866a8379c2fe8108ef034893c59e06d5e752f. The original explanation for
 the fix is attached below.

 Ticket #1776 originally reported an infinite loop when printing error
 message. This promptly got fixed in:

   commit 2d52ee06786e5caf0c2d65a4b4bb7c45c6493190
   Author: simonpj at microsoft.com <unknown>
   Date:   Thu Mar 1 11:45:13 2007 +0000

       Do not go into an infinite loop when pretty-printer finds a
       negative indent (Trac #1176)

 SPJ reports in the ticket: "So infinite loop is fixed, but the bad
 formatting remains. I've added a test, tcfail177."

 tcfail177 however hasn't triggered the formatting problem for years (as
 Ian reported in c9e0e6067a47c574d9ff3721afe58e30ca1be3e4).

 This patch updates the test to a version that at least still failed with
 ghc-7.0 (from #1776#comment:7).

 -------------------

 From https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/libraries/2008-June/010013.html,
 by Benedikt Huber:

     Concerning ticket #1337, we have to change the formal specification of
     fill (it doesn't match the implementation):

     -- Current Specification:
     --   fill []  = empty
     --   fill [p] = p
     --   fill (p1:p2:ps) = oneLiner p1 <#> nest (length p1)
     --                                          (fill (oneLiner p2 : ps))
     --                     `union`
     --                      p1 $$ fill ps

     Problem 1: We want to `unnest' the second argument of (p1 $$ fill ps),
     but not the first one

     In the definition above we have e.g.

     > getSecondLayout $
     >   fillDef False [text "a", text "b", text "a"]

     >> text "ab"; nilabove; nest -1; text "a"; empty
     >> |ab|
     >> |.a|

     Problem 2: The overlapping $$ should only be used for those layouts of
     p1 which aren't one liners (otherwise violating the invariant "Left
     union arg has shorter first line").

     I suggest the following specification (i believe it almost matches the
     current implementation, modulo [fillNB: fix bug #1337] (see below):

     -- Revised Specification:
     --   fill g docs = fill' 0 docs
     --   gap g       = if g then 1 else 0
     --   fill' n []  = []
     --   fill' n [p] = [p]
     --   fill' n (p1:p2:ps) =
     --      oneLiner p1 <g> (fill' (n+length p1+gap g) (oneLiner p2 : ps))
     --        `union`
     --     (p1 $*$ nest (-n) (fill' g ps))
     --
     -- $*$ is defined for layouts (One-Layout Documents) as
     --
     -- layout1 $*$ layout2 | isOneLiner layout1 = layout1 $+$ layout2
     --                     | otherwise          = layout1 $$ layout2

     I've also implemented the specification in HughesPJQuickCheck.hs,
     and checked them against the patched pretty printer.

     Concerning Bug #1337:
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     If the above formal specification is fine, it is easy to fix:
     elide the nests of (oneLiner p2) [see attached patch, record bug
 #1337].

     > PrettyPrint(0) $ ./Bug1337
     > ....ab
     > ...c

     The (long) explanation follows below.

     <snip/>

     ===========================================================
     Explanation of Bug #1337:

     Consider

     > fcat [ nest 1 $ text "a", nest 2 $ text "b", text "c"]

     --> expected: (nest 1; text "a"; text "b"; nest -3; "c")
     --> actual  : (nest 1; text "a"; text "b"; nest -5; "c")

     Reduction:
     === (nest 1; text a) <> (fill (-2) (p2:ps))
     ==>                     (nest 2 (text "b") $+$ text "c")
     ==>                     (nest 2 (text "b")) `nilabove`
                             (nest (-3) (text "c"))
     ==> (nest 1; text a; text b; nest -5 c)

     The problem is that if we decide to layout (p1:p2:ps) as

     | p1 p2
     | ps

     (call it layout A), then we want to have

     > (p1 <> p2) $+$ ps.

     But following law <n6> this means that

     > fcat_A [p1:nest k p2:ps]

     is equivalent to

     > fcat_A [p1,p2,ps]

     so the nest of p2 has to be removed.

     This is somewhat similar to bug #667, but easier to fix
     from a semantic point of view:
     p1,p2 and ps are distinct layouts - we only have to preserve the
     individual layouts, and no combinations of them.
 }}}

--
Ticket URL: <http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/1776#comment:5>
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