[Haskell-cafe] Difference between class and instance contexts

Chris Smith cdsmith at gmail.com
Wed Aug 3 21:53:41 CEST 2011


On Aug 3, 2011 1:33 PM, "Patrick Browne" <patrick.browne at dit.ie> wrote:
> instance Class Integer => SubClass Integer where
>    moo a = foo a

Since you've just written the Class instance for Integer, the superclass
context is actually irrelevant there.  You may as well just write

instance SubClass Integer where
    moo a = foo a

And that goes to the point of what the difference is.  In the first case,
you were declaring that all SubClass instances are Class instances,
and that mo defaults to foo for ALL types.  In the latter case, you're
defining this just for Integer.  The difference is whether that default
exists for other tyoes, or if its specific to Integer.

-- 
Chris Smith
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