[Haskell-cafe] Re: Heterogeneous Data Structures - Nested Pairs and functional references

[Heinrich Apfelmus]

Alexander Solla wrote:
>
> So, the type (View view) -- ignoring class instances -- is basically
> isomorphic to this (slightly simpler) type:
> 
> data View = EmptyView | TextView String | ConcatView View View |
> NestViews View View View | ...
> instance Monoid View where ...
> 
> Now, consider the problem of "generic programming" on the simpler
> type:   you quantify over the data constructors "generically", and in
> doing so you gain "traversals" for the type.[1]  You gain the same
> things by turning View into (View view) --  a functor, a foldable
> functor, and so on.  When it comes time to "render" a format for a View
> (for example, a bit of Html from Text.XHtml.Strict), I use some higher
> order functions I'm already familiar with.  Something like
> 
> renderXHtml :: (View view) -> Html
> renderXHtml (ConcatViews l r) = fold $ renderXHtml (ConcatViews l r)
> renderXHtml (NestViews l m r) = fold $ renderXHtml (NestViews l m r)
> renderXHtml (TextView string) = stringToHtml string
> renderXHtml (PageView v_title, v_heading, v_header, v_footer, v_contents) =
>     (the_title << (renderXHtml v_title)) +++         -- (We assume
> v_title is a TextView String)
>         (body << ( renderXHtml v_header )  +++
>          (render_page_contents v_contents v_heading) +++
>          (renderXHtml v_footer) )
>          where render_page_contents contents heading = undefined

But isn't the line

    renderXHtml (ConcatView l r) = fold $ renderXHtml (ConcatViews l r)

a type error? I'm assuming

    Data.Foldable.fold :: (Foldable m, Monoid t) => m t -> t

being applied to the result type of  renderXHtml  which is  Html  and
not of the form  m t .


Your intention reminds me of the use of type variables to get
functor-like behavior for free, like in

    data RGB' a = RGB a a a   -- auxiliary type constructor
    type RGB = RGB' Int       -- what we're interested in

    instance Functor RGB' where
        fmap f (RGB x y z) = RGB (f x) (f y) (f z)

    mapRGB :: (Int -> Int) -> RGB -> RGB
    mapRGB = fmap

but I don't quite see what you're doing with the free monad here, Alexander?


Regards,
Heinrich Apfelmus

--
http://apfelmus.nfshost.com