[Haskell-cafe] ok, someone check me on this (type unification from the (>>=)/fmap thread)

Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH allbery at ece.cmu.edu
Sun May 10 01:24:43 EDT 2009


I can't tell where I'm making the mistake here.

In the thread where (>>=) and fmap were being confused, the error  
cited a type (Maybe a) which was supposed to be in typeclass Num.  As  
far as I can tell, if the typechecker gets to the point where Num and  
Maybe are both present and (m) is Maybe, it has to (1) be focused on  
the (m b) part of (a -> m b), and therefore (2) must have already  
unified (a) and (b).  But that means (m b) must unify with (Num a =>  
a), which is unified with (b), resulting in the attempt to unify (Num  
a => a) with (Maybe a); since we get the error about (Maybe a) not  
being a Num, it must not have gotten there.  But that means it can't  
have related Num to (m a) with (m) bound to Maybe, which is why I  
assumed it had unified (m) with ((->) r) instead.

Can the typechecker really get the Num to the other end of (a -> m b)  
without also getting the (a) there?  Or is it checking for the Num  
constraint before it has fully evaluated the type of (m b)?  I thought  
typeclass constraints happened later than basic type unification.

-- 
brandon s. allbery [solaris,freebsd,perl,pugs,haskell] allbery at kf8nh.com
system administrator [openafs,heimdal,too many hats] allbery at ece.cmu.edu
electrical and computer engineering, carnegie mellon university    KF8NH


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 195 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/attachments/20090510/87f52651/PGP.bin


More information about the Haskell-Cafe mailing list