[Haskell-cafe] Type parameters in type families

[Hugo Pacheco]

But by doing so I am changing type equality to the same as having "type
family F a :: * -> *"

F' a x ~ F' b y <=> F' a ~ F' b /\ x ~ y (equality for ADTs)

 and I would like this "decomposition rule not to apply" so.

Thanks though,
hugo

On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 1:12 AM, Ryan Ingram <ryani.spam at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3/17/08, Hugo Pacheco <hpacheco at gmail.com> wrote:
> > type family G a :: * -> *
> > type instance G Int = Either () -- you forgot this line
> >
> > instance Functor (G Int) where
> >    fmap f (Left ()) = Left ()
> >    fmap f (Right x) = Right (f x)
>
> One thing that you don't seem to be clear about is that there is
> something slightly magic going on in this Functor definition; you are
> not declaring Functor (G Int) but rather Functor (whatever (G Int)
> turns into).  This is using a GHC extension "TypeSynonymInstances".
> The extension allows you to use type synonyms when declaring
> instances, but only if they are fully applied, and the compiler is
> simply applying the substitution for you.
>
> That is to say, this code is no different than the following:
>
> type family G a :: * -> *
> type instance G Int = Either ()
> instance Functor (Either ()) where
>     fmap f (Left ()) = Left ()
>    fmap f (Right x) = Right (f x)
>
> Once you declare a more complicated type function, such as
>    type family F a x :: *
> this extension can no longer come into play.
>
> You can get around this restriction with a newtype:
>
> type family F a x :: *
> type instance F Int x = Either () x
>
> newtype F' a b = F' (F a b)
>
> instance Functor (F' Int) where
>   fmap f (F' (Left ())) = F' (Left ())
>   fmap f (F' (Right x)) = F' (Right $ f x)
>
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