[Haskell-cafe] Control.Monad.Error with a custom error type

Brian Smith brian-l-smith at uiowa.edu
Thu Aug 12 18:04:08 EDT 2004


I have:

 > data Reference = Ref [String] String
 > data ReferenceError = RefError
 >         { expectedType :: String       -- type of element we were 
looking for (e.g. "type","package")
 >         , pointOfError :: Reference    -- path to deepest parent 
element not found in path
 >         }
 > type ReferenceMonad = Either ReferenceError

I want to write functions that use "Either ReferenceError a" as as the 
error monad, instead of the more common "Either String a". In 
particular, I want to use be able to write:

 > type Model = [(String,Type)]
 > findType :: Model -> Reference -> ReferenceMonad Type
 > findType m -> r@(Ref [] name) = case lookup ((==name) . nameOf) m of
 >    Nothing -> throwError r
 >    Just x  -> return x

I know that I could make this work by making ReferenceError an instance 
of the Error class, but I cannot provide meaningful implementations of 
"noMsg" and "strMsg" for ReferenceError. So, it seems instead I need to 
make (Either ReferenceError) an instance of MonadError. However, when I 
try, I get:

 > instance MonadError (Either ReferenceError)

  Kind error: `Either ReferenceError' is not applied to enough type 
arguments
  When checking kinds in `MonadError (Either ReferenceError)'
  In the instance declaration for `MonadError (Either ReferenceError)'

So, how do I get the effect I want for "findType"? Besides "throwError" 
I also want to use "catchError".

Thanks,
Brian
(Haskell newbie)





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