[Haskell-cafe] difference between type and newtype

[Andrea Rossato]

Il Fri, Aug 25, 2006 at 08:35:01PM +0100, Brian Hulley ebbe a scrivere:
> It is maybe easier to just think of a newtype decl as being the same as a 
> data decl except for the fact that you can only have one constructor on the 
> rhs whereas a data decl allows multiple constructors, and a type decl by 
> contrast as just introducing a simple alias for convenience.

First my apologies for being a bit confusing in my question: I'm tired
and wrote the code too quickly...;-)

So I'll rephrase:

type T a = Int -> (a, Int)
mkT :: a -> T a
mkT a = \x -> (a, x)

newtype T1 a = T1 (Int -> (a,Int))
mkT1 :: a -> T1 a
mkT1 a = T1 (\x -> (a, x))


data T2 a = T2 (Int -> (a,Int))
mkT2 :: a -> T2 a
mkT2 a = T2 (\x -> (a, x))

makeT a b = mkT a b
--makeT1 a b = mkT1 a b
--makeT2 a b = mkT2 a b

why makeT 1 2 works while makeT1 a makeT2 will not compile?
That is to say: why mkT1 and mkT2 cannot be used (even though the
compiler does not complain)?
That is to say, can someone explain this behaviour? I do not grasp it.

Thanks for your kind attention.
Andrea