[Haskell-cafe] FunPtr error?

[Ryan Ingram]

The simple explanation is "because the FFI standard says so";
primitive types wrapped in newtypes automatically get wrapped and
unwrapped during FFI calls.  See
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~chak/haskell/ffi/ffi/ffise3.html#x6-120003.2
; the FFI uses "renamed datatype" to mean newtype.

Consider the following declarations translated to C:

> type Weak = Word32
> {- typedef HsWord32 Weak; }

Weak is just a type alias; you can use Word32 and Weak interchangeably
in your code after delcaring this type.

> newtype Strong = Strong Word32
> {- doesn't really exist in C; google for "c strong typedef" -}

Strong behaves exactly like a Word32 at runtime, in terms of storage,
but the typechecker can distinguish it from Word32.

> data Holder = Holder Word32
> {- typedef struct { HsWord32 x; } Holder; -}

Holder, on the other hand, is entirely separate from Word32; in fact,
there are strictly more values in Haskell of type Holder than there
are of type Word32:

> ha, hb, hc :: Holder  -- can all be distinguished at runtime
> ha = undefined
> hb = Holder undefined
> hc = Holder 0

> sa, sb :: Strong -- cannot be distinguished
> sa = undefined
> sb = Strong undefined