[Haskell-cafe] difference between class context and deriving

[Nicolas Wu]

Hi Patrick,

On 2 August 2011 13:57, Patrick Browne <patrick.browne at dit.ie> wrote:
> What is the difference between using a class context and deriving in
> data type declaration?

A class context simply says something about the types involved in the
construction. In your example,

> data Eq a => Set1 a = NilSet1 | ConsSet1 a (Set1 a)

the type `a` must have an instance of `Eq`. This does not imply that
`Set1` itself has an instance of `Eq`.

On the other hand, the `deriving` keyword tells the compiler that
you'd like it to try and derive a default instance for a class. In
your example, this results in an instance of `Eq Set2`.

Hopefully that should explain why you had:

> (NilSet1) == (NilSet1) -- no instance, error
> (NilSet2) == (NilSet2) -- True

All the best,

Nick