[Haskell-cafe] object oriented technique

[Steffen Schuldenzucker]

Tad,

It doesn't look bad, but depending on what you want to do with the
[ShapeD] aftewards you might not need this level of generality.

Remember that the content of a ShapeD has type (forall a. ShapeC a =>
a), so all you can do with it is call class methods from ShapeC. So if
all you do is construct some ShapeD and pass that around, the following
solution is equivalent:

data Shape = Shape {
      draw :: String
      copyTo :: Double ->  Double -> Shape
      -- ^ We loose some information here. The original method of ShapeC
      -- stated that copyTo of a Rectangle will be a rectangle again
      -- etc. Feel free to add a proxy type parameter to Shape if this
      -- information is necessary.
}

circle :: Double -> Double -> Double -> Shape
circle x y r = Shape dc $ \x y -> circle x y r
   where dc = "Circ (" ++ show x ++ ", " ++ show y ++ ") -- "" ++ show r

rectangle :: Double -> Double -> Double -> Double -> Shape
rectangle x y w h = ... (analogous)

shapes = [rectangle 1 2 3 4, circle 4 3 2, circle 1 1 1]

-- Steffen

On 03/29/2011 07:49 AM, Tad Doxsee wrote:
> I've been trying to learn Haskell for a while now, and recently
> wanted to do something that's very common in the object oriented
> world, subtype polymorphism with a heterogeneous collection. It took
> me a while, but I found a solution that meets my needs. It's a
> combination of solutions that I saw on the web, but I've never seen
> it presented in a way that combines both in a short note. (I'm sure
> it's out there somewhere, but it's off the beaten path that I've been
> struggling along.)  The related solutions are
>
> 1. section 3.6 of http://homepages.cwi.nl/~ralf/OOHaskell/paper.pdf
>
> 2. The GADT comment at the end of section 4 of
> http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Heterogenous_collections
>
> I'm looking for comments on the practicality of the solution, and
> references to better explanations of, extensions to, or simpler
> alternatives for what I'm trying to achieve.
>
> Using the standard example, here's the code:
>
>
> data Rectangle = Rectangle { rx, ry, rw, rh :: Double } deriving (Eq,
> Show)
>
> drawRect :: Rectangle ->  String drawRect r = "Rect (" ++ show (rx r)
> ++ ", "  ++ show (ry r) ++ ") -- " ++ show (rw r) ++ " x " ++ show
> (rh r)
>
>
> data Circle = Circle {cx, cy, cr :: Double} deriving (Eq, Show)
>
> drawCirc :: Circle ->  String drawCirc c = "Circ (" ++ show (cx c) ++
> ", " ++ show (cy c)++ ") -- " ++ show (cr c)
>
> r1 = Rectangle 0 0 3 2 r2 = Rectangle 1 1 4 5 c1 = Circle 0 0 5 c2 =
> Circle 2 0 7
>
>
> rs = [r1, r2] cs = [c1, c2]
>
> rDrawing = map drawRect rs cDrawing = map drawCirc cs
>
> -- shapes = rs ++ cs
>
> Of course, the last line won't compile because the standard Haskell
> list may contain only homogeneous types.  What I wanted to do is
> create a list of circles and rectangles, put them in a list, and draw
> them.  It was easy for me to find on the web and in books how to do
> that if I controlled all of the code. What wasn't immediately obvious
> to me was how to do that in a library that could be extended by
> others.  The references noted previously suggest this solution:
>
>
> class ShapeC s where draw :: s ->  String copyTo :: s ->  Double ->
> Double ->  s
>
> -- needs {-# LANGUAGE GADTs #-} data ShapeD  where ShapeD :: ShapeC s
> =>  s ->  ShapeD
>
> instance ShapeC ShapeD where draw (ShapeD s) = draw s copyTo (ShapeD
> s) x y = ShapeD (copyTo s x y)
>
> mkShape :: ShapeC s =>  s ->  ShapeD mkShape s = ShapeD s
>
>
>
> instance ShapeC Rectangle where draw = drawRect copyTo (Rectangle _ _
> rw rh) x y = Rectangle x y rw rh
>
> instance ShapeC Circle where draw = drawCirc copyTo (Circle _ _ r) x
> y = Circle x y r
>
>
> r1s = ShapeD r1 r2s = ShapeD r2 c1s = ShapeD c1 c2s = ShapeD c2
>
> shapes1 = [r1s, r2s, c1s, c2s] drawing1 = map draw shapes1
>
> shapes2 = map mkShape rs ++ map mkShape cs drawing2 = map draw
> shapes2
>
> -- copy the shapes to the origin then draw them shapes3 = map (\s ->
> copyTo s 0 0) shapes2 drawing3 = map draw shapes3
>
>
> Another user could create a list of shapes that included triangles by
> creating a ShapeC instance for his triangle and using mkShape to add
> it to a list of ShapeDs.
>
> Is the above the standard method in Haskell for creating an
> extensible heterogeneous list of "objects" that share a common
> interface?  Are there better approaches?  (I ran into a possible
> limitation to this approach that I plan to ask about later if I can't
> figure it out myself.)
>
> - Tad
>
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