Top-level bindings for unlifted types

[Neil Mitchell]

Hi

> Top-level unboxed values would then
> behave just like #define constants, in fact.  This is certainly possible,
> it would just add complexity to the compiler in various places.

Yes, that was all I was thinking of. I'm not suggesting that these
things actually get implemented, but it did seem a strange restriction
that it would have been impossible to define something like realWorld#
in Haskell without baking it into the compiler.

> What would you expect to happen for this?
>
> fib :: Int -> Int#
> fib n = ...
>
> x :: Int#
> x = fib 100#
>
>
> 'x' cannot be bound to a thunk.  So the top-level computation would have to be evaluated eagerly.  But when?  Perhaps when the program starts?

Yes, when the program starts seems perfectly sensible - and mirrors
what happens in C, I believe.

My particular use of this construct was to introduce a little bit of
abstraction so that the same code could be compiled with GHC and Hugs
simply by switching in a different set of definitions - and still
perform optimally in GHC. But some CPP does just as well :-)

Thanks

Neil