[Haskell-cafe] Unexpected Typeable behaviour; Prelude.undefined

[Ryan Ingram]

The problem with hiding the context in the constructor is that there's no
guarantee that the context actually exists in the first place; for example,
given this type

data IsInt a where
    Proof :: IsInt Int

this is a legal program:

foo :: IsInt Bool
foo = undefined

That said, you are still just fine to hide the context in the constructor at
the call site:

data MyGADT m where
    MonadAction :: (Typeable1 m, Monad m) -> m () -> MyGADT m

instance (Typeable1 m, Monad m) => Typeable (MyGADT m) where
    typeof t = ...

getTypeRep :: MyGADT m -> TypeRep
getTypeRep x@(MonadAction _) = typeof (undefined `asTypeOf` x)

Here we unpack the context from x and use it to construct the 'typeof'
function for MyGADT m.

  -- ryan

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 2:06 AM, Philip Holzenspies
<pkfh at st-andrews.ac.uk>wrote:

>  Dear Brandon, Ozgur, et al,
>
>  Thanks very much for you explanation. This seems to be a perfectly
> reasonable explanation; the wrapper-types I used probably explicitly invoke
> typeOf with undefined. The problem here, however, is that in my actual
> program, I don't use ADTs, but I use GADTs, so as to carry the context
> (Monad, Typeable1) with the constructor. To get to this context, I must
> pattern-match with the constructor. It seems hiding contexts (which I really
> like about GADTs) isn't "available" consistently. Oh well ;)
>
>  Regards,
> Philip
>
>
>  On 29 Aug 2011, at 01:20, Brandon Allbery wrote:
>
>  On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 18:44, Philip Holzenspies <pkfh at st-andrews.ac.uk>wrote:
>
>> instance (Typeable1 m, Monad m) => Typeable (MyADT m) where
>>        typeOf t@(MyADT _)
>>
>
>  typeOf is usually invoked with an undefined parameter; it should use
> types, never values.  Here you've defined it to deconstruct what it's
> passed, which means that anything that uses it in the usual way (`typeOf
> (undefined :: someType)') will immediately throw undefined.
>
>  You don't need a deconstructor there; you (correctly) throw away the
> value, and it doesn't provide any type information not already available
> from the instance declaration.  `typeOf t' should be good enough.
>
>  --
> brandon s allbery                                      allbery.b at gmail.com
> wandering unix systems administrator (available)     (412) 475-9364 vm/sms
>
>
>
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