[Haskell-cafe] Parsec float

[Derek Elkins]

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 1:12 PM, Jason Dusek <jason.dusek at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/05/30 Bartosz Wójcik <bartek at sudety.it>:
>> ...reading RWH I could not memorize what those liftM funtions
>> meant.
>
>  The basic one, `liftM`, means `fmap`, though specialized for
>  functors that are monads.
>
>    Prelude Control.Monad> :t liftM
>    liftM :: forall a b (m :: * -> *). (Monad m) => (a -> b) -> m a -> m b
>    Prelude Control.Monad> :t fmap
>    fmap :: forall a b (f :: * -> *). (Functor f) => (a -> b) -> f a -> f b
>
>  I think we have `liftM` either to help the inferencer or due
>  to the absence of a `(Functor m)` constraint in the definition
>  of the `Monad` typeclass.

It's the latter effectively.  liftM doesn't make anything easier for
the type checker.  liftM simply has a different type than fmap, not a
more specialized one, but even if Monad did have a Functor constraint,
liftM would still never lead to any ambiguity being resolved.