:info features

Simon Marlow marlowsd at gmail.com
Tue Feb 10 08:31:24 EST 2009


Remi Turk wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 07, 2009 at 12:39:03AM -0500, Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH wrote:
>> On 2009 Feb 5, at 5:49, Remi Turk wrote:
>>> SPJ agreed with the idea itself, but suggested an alternative set of  
>>> commands:
>>>
>>>   :info Show        -- See class definition only
>>>   :instances Show   -- See instances of Show
>> (...)
>>> However, it would make ":i" ambiguous, which is rather sad.
>> :class Show -- unique prefix :cl, already many such collisions
>> :instance Show
> 
> That could work, but then how to get information about types as
> opposed to classes? Its not in the above example, but "Show"
> actually stands for an arbitrary typeclass _or type_.
> 
> However, as igloo pointed out on the ticket, abbreviations don't
> actually have to be unique:
> 
>  "For example, :b means :break even though we also have :back, :browse and :browse!. " [1]
> 
> That would personally lead me to prefer the :info/:instances
> combo, with :i as an abbreviation of :info.

My vote would be:

:info class Show
:info type Show
:info instance Show

where

:info Show

displays information about everything called "Show"

I know that classes and types share the same namespace currently, but it 
might not always be so.

Cheers,
	Simon


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