[Haskell-cafe] representing Haskell objects in a uniform way

[Daniel Fischer]

Am Mittwoch 04 November 2009 22:03:09 schrieb Pasqualino "Titto" Assini:
> Hi,
>
> I am writing a little IPC system to make Haskell values and functions
> remotely invokable.
>
> To do so, I need (or so I believe) to make my objects accessible via a
> generic interface as in:
>
> class AFun f where
>    afun :: Data a => f -> ([Dynamic] -> a)
>
> So my generic object is something that takes an array of parameters,
> that being Dynamic can be anything, and returns a Data, that I can
> easily serialise and send back on the wire.
>
> I start by defining an instance for functions:
>
> instance (Typeable a,AFun b) => AFun (a->b) where
>   afun f (p:ps) = let Just v = fromDynamic p in afun (f v) ps
>   afun _ _      = error "Too few arguments"
>
> So far so good, but when I try to define an instance for values:
>
> instance Data v => AFun v where
>   afun f [] = f
>   afun _ _  = error "Too many arguments"
>
> I get:
>
> Couldn't match expected type `a' against inferred type `v'
>       `a' is a rigid type variable bound by
>           the type signature for `afun'
>             at
> /home/titto/.quid2/state/ubuntu.local.8080/wikidata/haskell/package/haskell
>d/src/HaskellD/Test.hs:7:17 `v' is a rigid type variable bound by
>           the instance declaration ....
>
>
> Why is that? a and v are both declared to be a Data, why should they not
> match?

afun's type sgnature says "whatever type you (the caller) want, I can give it to you, as 
long as it's a member of Data"
But v is one particular type belonging to Data, and it's the only one, the implementation 
of afun can provide.

Maybe you want

class (Data a) => AFun f a | f -> a where
    afun :: f -> ([Dynamic] -> a)

or, with type families:

class AFun f where
    type RType f :: *
    afun :: (Data (RType f)) => f -> ([Dynamic] -> RType f)

I'm not quite sure whether that compiles, let alone does what you want, but it might be 
worth a try.