-fallow-incoherent-instances

[Simon Peyton-Jones]

It is strange that adding -fallow-incoherent-instances should *stop* it
compiling.

This does not happen in the HEAD.  I can see why it happens in 6.2

You are on very very very thin ice with this program.  You have

	instance Confuse a => Typeable a

	f :: Typeable a => ...
	f x = ....stuff that needs Typeable ....

At any time the compiler might use the instance decl to reduce the
constraint
	Typeable a
to
	Confuse a
The only thing *stopping* it doing so is the desire to preserve
coherence, which is why it does though before you add the flag.  When
you add the flag -fallow-incoherent-instances, the compiler feels free
to reduce Typeable a to Confuse a... but then it finds that the type
signature for f only provides Typeable.

Sorry.. but if you have all of
	undecidable instances
	overlapping instances
	incoherent instances
then life is pretty wild.

Simon

| -----Original Message-----
| From: glasgow-haskell-users-bounces at haskell.org
[mailto:glasgow-haskell-users-
| bounces at haskell.org] On Behalf Of Christian Maeder
| Sent: 30 November 2004 11:48
| To: GHC Users Mailing List
| Subject: -fallow-incoherent-instances
| 
| The attached module does not compile and yields the following error:
| 
| InCoherentInst.hs:17:
|      Could not deduce (Confuse a) from the context (Typeable a)
|        arising from use of `breakFn' at InCoherentInst.hs:17
|      Probable fix:
|          Add (Confuse a) to the type signature(s) for
`addGeneralFallOut'
|      In the first argument of `GeneralBreakFn', namely `breakFn'
|      In the definition of `addGeneralFallOut':
|          addGeneralFallOut = let
|                                breakFn a = throwDyn
(GeneralFallOutExcep a)
|                              in GeneralBreakFn breakFn
| 
| 
| The same source compiles ok without -fallow-incoherent-instances (or
| with -fno-allow-incoherent-instances).
| 
| If, furthermore, the "confusing instance" is commented out, the source
| even compiles without extensions.
| 
| I don't know if this is a bug, possibly related to the import of
| Typeable stuff. I don't need a fix. I only want to point out that
| globally switching on the option -fallow-incoherent-instances is
likely
| to break existing code, currently (ghc 6.2.2).
| 
| Cheers Christian