[Haskell-cafe] Re: change in overlapping instance behavior between GHC 6.12 and GHC 7 causes compilation failure

[Neil Brown]

I'm not sure whether to reply to the list(s) or the ticket; maybe if you 
think my comments are valid they can be copied to the ticket.  From 
looking, it seems to me that you do have overlapping instances, and I 
wonder if it's actually a 6.12 bug for accepting the code, not a 7 bug 
for rejecting it.  I took your XMLGenerator.lhs file from the ticket and 
loaded it in GHC 6.12; it loaded fine.  Then I looked through and 
squinted at this instance:

 > instance (EmbedAsChild m c, m1 ~ m) => EmbedAsChild m (XMLGenT m1 c)

That looked to me like a long-winded way of saying:

 > instance (EmbedAsChild m c) => EmbedAsChild m (XMLGenT m c)

Unless I'm missing something?  So I made that change, then loaded it 
again.  Suddenly I have overlapping instances in 6.12:

XMLGenerator.lhs:64:16:
     Overlapping instances for EmbedAsChild
                                 (IdentityT IO) (XMLGenT m (XML m))
       arising from a use of `asChild' at XMLGenerator.lhs:64:16-22
     Matching instances:
       instance [overlap ok] (XML m ~ x, XMLGen m) => EmbedAsChild m x
         -- Defined at XMLGenerator.lhs:37:11-52
       instance [overlap ok] (EmbedAsChild m c) =>
                             EmbedAsChild m (XMLGenT m c)
         -- Defined at XMLGenerator.lhs:31:11-60

It seems to me that the two instances can overlap; consider if I define 
an instance for XMLGen:

 > data WhateverM
 > instance XMLGen WhateverM where
 >   type XML WhateverM = XMLGenT WhateverM ()

At that point your instances would overlap if I want an instance for 
EmbedAsChild WhateverM (XMLGenT WhateverM ()).  My understanding of the 
way type-classes are checked is that since that instance could exist 
somewhere in a different module, we must reject the two instances for 
EmbedAsChild.  (Or rather: ignoring the head of the instance 
declarations, the instances can overlap.)  But I may be wrong!

So my guess is you've always had overlapping instances (assuming this 
code is representative of your original), and my hypothesis is that the 
use of "~" in one of the instances was somehow stopping GHC 6.12 from 
spotting this.

Thoughts (and corrections!) welcome.

Thanks,

Neil.


On 08/11/10 23:30, Jeremy Shaw wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have narrowed this down further to a single file. And created a trac
> bug for it:
>
> http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/4485
>
> This is (the only thing?) holding up HSP and happstack moving to GHC 7.
>
> - jeremy
>
> On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 5:36 PM, Jeremy Shaw<jeremy at n-heptane.com>  wrote:
>    
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a module, XMLGenerator, which has some overlapping instances.
>> I have a second module, Test, which imports that module and also adds
>> some more overlapping instances.
>>
>> Both modules contain {-# LANGUAGE OverlappingInstances #-} at the top.
>>
>> Under some old version of 6.13 (and probably 6.12), if I put both
>> modules in the same directory and try to load Test.hs, it gets the
>> error:
>>
>> Test.hs:16:15:
>>     Overlapping instances for EmbedAsChild (M IO) (XMLGenT m (XML m))
>>       arising from a use of `asChild' at Test.hs:16:15-21
>>     Matching instances:
>>       instance (m1 ~ m, EmbedAsChild m c) =>
>>                EmbedAsChild m (XMLGenT m1 c)
>>         -- Defined at XMLGenerator.hs:16:10-68
>>       instance (XML m ~ x, XMLGen m) =>  EmbedAsChild m x
>>         -- Defined at XMLGenerator.hs:19:10-51
>>     In the first argument of `($)', namely `asChild'
>>     In the expression: asChild $ (genElement "foo")
>>     In the definition of `asChild':
>>         asChild b = asChild $ (genElement "foo")
>>
>> If I put the XMLGenerator module in a separate package, dummy-hsx, and
>> the Test modules links against it, I still get the error.
>>
>> *but* if I add:
>>
>>   Extensions:      OverlappingInstances
>>
>> to the dummy-hsx.cabal file, then Test.hs compiles just fine! So, for
>> starters, I do not understand why that happens.
>>
>> Under GHC 7.0rc1, modifying the .cabal file has no effect. Instead I
>> always get the error:
>>
>> Test.hs:16:15:
>>     Overlapping instances for EmbedAsChild (M IO) (XMLGenT m (XML m))
>>       arising from a use of `asChild'
>>     Matching instances:
>>       instance [overlap ok] (m1 ~ m, EmbedAsChild m c) =>
>>                             EmbedAsChild m (XMLGenT m1 c)
>>         -- Defined in XMLGenerator
>>     (The choice depends on the instantiation of `m'
>>      To pick the first instance above, use -XIncoherentInstances
>>      when compiling the other instance declarations)
>>
>> Adding the IncoherentInstances flag does make it compile -- but I have
>> never enabled that flag and not regretted it.
>>
>> What changed between GHC 6.12 and GHC 7.0? Is there a some solution
>> besides using IncoherentInstances in every module that imports
>> XMLGenerator?
>>
>> I have attached XMLGenerator.hs, Test.hs, and dummy-hsx.cabal.
>>
>> thanks!
>> - jeremy
>>
>>      
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