[Haskell-cafe] unboxed arrays restricted to simple types (Int, Float, ..)

[Eugene Kirpichov]

You might also look at how Data Parallel Haskell implements its arrays.
IIRC, it implements an array of n-field records as n arrays. You can
easily do that with typeclasses and type families.

2009/11/11 Tillmann Vogt <Tillmann.Vogt at rwth-aachen.de>:
> Hi,
>
> I tried to use unboxed arrays for generating an antialiased texture. To make
> it easier to understand, here is the stripped down code that produces an
> error:
>
>>import Control.Monad.ST
>>import Data.Array.ST
>>import Data.Array.Unboxed
>>import Data.Word
>>type BitMask = UArray Int Word16 -- for determining the grey value of a
>> pixel
>>type Pixels = (Int, Int, T)
>>data T = N | B BitMask -- this does not work
>>-- type T = Int -- this works if int the next line N is replaced by ..lets
>> say 0
>>f = newArray (0,10) N :: (ST s (STUArray s Int T))
>
> http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/array/0.2.0.0/doc/html/Data-Array-MArray.html#t%3AMArray
> shows that mutable/unboxed arrays only allow simple types:
> i.e.  MArray (STUArray s) Int32 (ST s)
>
> Isn't this ugly? Imagine this would be the case in C:
>
>
> struct stupidArrayElement{
>  int a;
>  int b; // not allowed!
> }
>
> stupidArrayElement s[10];
>
>
> Wouldn't it be nice to have something like: MArray (STUArray s) e (ST s)
> with e being a non-recursive data type (like data T = N | B Bitmask).
> My understanding of Haskell isn't deep enough to know if I have overlooked
> something or if the problem is solvable without a language extension. With a
> language extension I guess that it is not hard to find out if an abstract
> data type is non-recursive. Then this type should be serializable
> automatically.
>
> What do you think?
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-- 
Eugene Kirpichov
Web IR developer, market.yandex.ru