[Haskell-cafe] casting numerical types

[Matthias Fischmann]

hi all,

this should be a quick one (for now I would be happy with a "that's
impossible", just want to make sure I don't miss anything).  I want to
compute the average from a list of arbitrary numerical element type.
I wanted to do this:

    avg :: (Num a) => [a] -> a
    avg xs = sum (map fromNum xs) / (fromIntegral (length xs))

but it doesn't compile.  All I could get to work is this:

    avg :: (Fractional a) => [a] -> a
    avg xs = sum xs / (fromIntegral (length xs))

    avgI :: (Integral a) => [a] -> Float
    avgI = avg . map fromIntegral

The two function names for the same thing are tolerable, but not very
elegant.  Is there another option?

Thanks,
Matthias
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