[Haskell-cafe] Haskell record extension?

[bf3 at telenet.be]

Thanks. Yes I read this is syntactic sugar, and I actually like that
approach; it automatically "encapsulates" the data fileds by functions,
which from an OO programmers point of view, is a good thing. I'm doing my
best to get rid of that OO view though, which is not easy after 15 years of
OO and 10 years of imperative programming ;-)

However, I never understood why Haskell doesn't permit the same name for a
function acting on different types, even without using type classes. Must be
some deeper reason for it (currying?)

Now the type class approach is interesting; it's like saying "any type that
has an XXX field"... 

Lot's of typing, but IMHO it's worth it because it abstracts the concept of
a field. I read some papers that some extensions got proposed to treat
"fields" as first class values, so one could just do "get X (Vector2 1 2)".
Did something like that make it into GHC?

So the example becomes:

module Main where

-- "Vector" is a rather stupid example, because Haskell has tuples

data Vector2 = Vector2 Float Float
data Vector3 = Vector3 Float Float Float

class HasX v where
  getX :: v -> Float
  setX :: v -> Float -> v
	  	
class HasY v where
  getY :: v -> Float
  setY :: v -> Float -> v

class HasZ v where
  getZ :: v -> Float
  setZ :: v -> Float -> v
	
instance HasX Vector2 where 
	getX (Vector2 x y) = x
	setX (Vector2 x y) value =  Vector2 value y

instance HasY Vector2 where 
	getY (Vector2 x y) = y
	setY (Vector2 x y) value = Vector2 x value

instance HasX Vector3 where 
	getX (Vector3 x y z) = x
	setX (Vector3 x y z) value = Vector3 value y z

instance HasY Vector3 where 
	getY (Vector3 x y z) = y
	setY (Vector3 x y z) value = Vector3 x value z

instance HasZ Vector3 where 
	getZ (Vector3 x y z) = z
	setZ (Vector3 x y z) value = Vector3 x y value
	
test v x = getY (setX v x)
	
main = print $ test (Vector2 1 2) 3

-----Original Message-----
From: haskell-cafe-bounces at haskell.org
[mailto:haskell-cafe-bounces at haskell.org] On Behalf Of Paul Johnson
Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2007 12:51 AM
To: Andrew Coppin
Cc: haskell-cafe at haskell.org
Subject: Re: [Haskell-cafe] Haskell record extension?

Andrew Coppin wrote:
> bf3 at telenet.be wrote:
>> I'm learning Haskell.
>> I was surprised that the following example did not compile:
>>
>> data Vector2 = Vector2 { x :: Float, y :: Float }
>> data Vector3 = Vector3 { x :: Float, y :: Float, z :: Float }
>>
>> error: "Multiple declarations of `Main.x'"
>>
>
> AFAIK, GHC doesn't implement any fix for this. (I've been wrong before 
> tho...)
This is a feature, not a bug.  Haskell in general does not let you give 
two functions the same name (which is what you want to do).  This is 
true of all functions, not just the ones implicitly defined here.  Your 
"Vector2" type is pure syntactic sugar for:

data Vector2 = Vector2 Float Float
x, y :: Vector2 -> Float
x (Vector2 v _) = v
y (Vector2 _ v) = v

So now you also want

x (Vector3 v _ _) = v
   etc etc.

And no, you can't do that because "x" on its own might refer to either 
version, and its not clear which one you want.

Paul.
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