[Haskell-cafe] instance MonadFix GenParser

[Paul Johnson]

I want to write a parser for a Haskell-like type language.  Amongst 
other things this means having a symbol table of top-level 
declarations.  So for instance I want to be able to write in my type 
language:


 >   type Foo = Bar Int
 >
 >   data Bar a = Bar String a

I can come up with a parser that identifies "Bar" in the type synonym as 
the name of another type.  I could define a type to return from the 
parser which just has that as a string, but then I would have to write 
another data type which is essentially the same but replaces the string 
name with the actual data type, and a mapping function to use a symbol 
table to convert one into the other, like this:

 >   data ParsedTypeExpr = ParsedTypeExpr {parsedBaseType :: String, 
parsedTypeArgs :: [String]}
 >
 >   data TypeExpr = TypeExpr {baseType :: MyType, typeArgs :: [String]}
 >
 >   convertTypeExpr :: (String -> MyType) -> ParsedTypeExpr -> TypeExpr

I want to short-circuit this by looking up the definition of Bar in the 
parser.  But that requires the symbol table to exist during the parse.

I have to admit I haven't quite got my head around MonadFix yet, but if 
I understand it correctly I should be able to have a top level parser 
something like this:

 >   parseDeclarations :: Parser [Declaration]
 >   parseDeclarations = mdo
 >      decls <- many ParseDeclaration symbols 
 >      let symbols = makeSymbolTable decls
 >      return decls

Unfortunately GenParser isn't an instance of MonadFix, so this won't work.

Is there a good reason why GenParser can't be an instance of MonadFix?  
If not, what would the instance declaration be?

Thanks,

Paul.