[Haskell-cafe] Functional dependencies and type inference

[Iavor Diatchki]

Hello,

On 8/11/05, Simon Peyton-Jones <simonpj at microsoft.com> wrote:

> ... Here is a boiled down version, much simpler to
> understand.
> 
>         module Proxy where
> 
>         class Dep a b | a -> b
>         instance Dep Char Bool
> 
>         foo :: forall a. a -> (forall b. Dep a b => a -> b) -> Int
>         foo x f = error "urk"

Should this really be valid?  It seems that because 'b' is determined
by 'a' we should not be allowed to quantify over 'b' without
quantifying over 'a'. I think we can view the class 'Dep' as a
function on types, that is defined by the instances.  Then the above
type is:
a -> (a -> Dep a) -> Int
and it seems that the quantification over 'b' is non-sensical.

-Iavor