[Haskell-cafe] StableNames and monadic functions

[Lorenzo Bolla]

I think about StableName like the "&" operator in C, that returns you the
memory address of a variable. It's not the same for many reasons, but by
analogy, if &x == &y then x == y, but &x != &y does not imply x != y.

So, values that are semantically equal, may be stored in different memory
locations and have different StableNames.

The fact that changing the order of the lines also changes the result of
the computation is obviously stated in the type signature of
makeStableName, which lives in the IO monad. On the other hand
hashStableNAme is a pure function.

L.



On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 3:26 PM, Ismael Figueroa Palet <ifigueroap at gmail.com
> wrote:

>
>
> 2012/6/26 Lorenzo Bolla <lbolla at gmail.com>
>
>> The point I was making is that StableName might be what you want. You are
>> using it to check if two functions are the same by comparing their
>> "stablehash". But from StableName documentation:
>>
>>  The reverse is not necessarily true: if two stable names are not equal,
>>> then the objects they name may still be equal.
>>
>>
>> The `eq` you implemented means this, I reckon: if `eq` returns True then
>> the 2 functions are equal, if `eq` returns False then you can't tell!
>>
>> Does it make sense?
>> L.
>>
>
> Yes  it does make sense, and I'm wondering why the hash are equal in one
> case but are not equal on the other case (i.e. using let/where vs not using
> it) because I'd like it to behave the same in both situations
>
> Thanks again
>
>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 1:54 PM, Ismael Figueroa Palet <
>> ifigueroap at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks Lorenzo, I'm cc'ing the list with your response also:
>>>
>>> As you point out, when you do some kind of "let-binding", using the
>>> where clause, or explicit let as in:
>>>
>>> main :: IO ()
>>> main = do
>>>        let f1 = (successor :: Int -> State Int Int)
>>>        let f2 = (successor :: Int -> Maybe Int)
>>>        b2 <- eq f2 f2
>>>        b1 <- eq f1 f1
>>>        print (show b1 ++ " " ++ show b2)
>>>
>>> The behavior is as expected. I guess the binding triggers some internal
>>> optimization or gives more information to the type checker; but I'm still
>>> not clear why it is required to be done this way -- having to let-bind
>>> every function is kind of awkward.
>>>
>>> I know the details of StableNames are probably implementation-dependent,
>>> but I'm still wondering about how to detect / restrict this situation.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>>
>>> 2012/6/26 Lorenzo Bolla <lbolla at gmail.com>
>>>
>>>> From StableName docs:
>>>>
>>>>> The reverse is not necessarily true: if two stable names are not
>>>>> equal, then the objects they name may still be equal.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This version works as expected:
>>>>
>>>> import System.Mem.StableName
>>>> import Control.Monad.State
>>>>
>>>> eq :: a -> b -> IO Bool
>>>> eq a b = do
>>>>              pa <- makeStableName a
>>>>              pb <- makeStableName b
>>>>              return (hashStableName pa == hashStableName pb)
>>>>
>>>> successor :: (Num a, Monad m) => a -> m a
>>>> successor n = return (n+1)
>>>>
>>>> --  main :: IO ()
>>>> --  main = do
>>>> --         b2 <- eq (successor :: Int -> State Int Int) (successor ::
>>>> Int -> State Int Int)
>>>> --         b1 <- eq (successor :: Int -> Maybe Int) (successor :: Int
>>>> -> Maybe Int)
>>>> --         print (show b1 ++ " " ++ show b2)
>>>>
>>>> main :: IO ()
>>>> main = do
>>>>        b2 <- eq f2 f2
>>>>        b1 <- eq f1 f1
>>>>        print (show b1 ++ " " ++ show b2)
>>>>    where f1 = (successor :: Int -> Maybe Int)
>>>>          f2 = (successor :: Int -> State Int Int)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> hth,
>>>> L.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 1:15 PM, Ismael Figueroa Palet <
>>>> ifigueroap at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I'm using StableNames to have a notion of function equality, and I'm
>>>>> running into problems when using monadic functions.
>>>>>
>>>>> Consider the code below, file Test.hs
>>>>>
>>>>> import System.Mem.StableName
>>>>> import Control.Monad.State
>>>>>
>>>>> eq :: a -> b -> IO Bool
>>>>> eq a b = do
>>>>>              pa <- makeStableName a
>>>>>              pb <- makeStableName b
>>>>>              return (hashStableName pa == hashStableName pb)
>>>>>
>>>>> successor :: (Num a, Monad m) => a -> m a
>>>>> successor n = return (n+1)
>>>>>
>>>>> main :: IO ()
>>>>> main = do
>>>>>        b1 <- eq (successor :: Int -> Maybe Int) (successor :: Int ->
>>>>> Maybe Int)
>>>>>        b2 <- eq (successor :: Int -> State Int Int) (successor :: Int
>>>>> -> State Int Int)
>>>>>        print (show b1 ++ " " ++ show b2)
>>>>>
>>>>> Running the code into ghci the result is "False False". There is some
>>>>> old post saying that this is due to the dictionary-passing style for
>>>>> typeclasses, and compiling with optimizations improves the situation.
>>>>>
>>>>> Compiling with ghc --make -O Tests.hs and running the program, the
>>>>> result is "True True", which is what I expect.
>>>>> However, if I change main to be like the following:
>>>>>
>>>>>  main :: IO ()
>>>>> main = do
>>>>>        b2 <- eq (successor :: Int -> State Int Int) (successor :: Int
>>>>> -> State Int Int)
>>>>>        b1 <- eq (successor :: Int -> Maybe Int) (successor :: Int ->
>>>>> Maybe Int)
>>>>>        print (show b1 ++ " " ++ show b2)
>>>>>
>>>>> i.e. just changing the sequential order, and then compiling again with
>>>>> the same command, I get "True False", which is very confusing for me.
>>>>> Similar situations happens when using the state monad transformer, and
>>>>> manually built variations of it.
>>>>>
>>>>> It sounds the problem is with hidden closures created somewhere that
>>>>> do not point to the same memory locations, so StableNames yields false for
>>>>> that cases, but it is not clear to me under what circumstances this
>>>>> situation happens. Is there other way to get some approximation of function
>>>>> equality? or a way to "configure" the behavior of StableNames in presence
>>>>> of class constraints?
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm using the latests Haskell Platform on OS X Lion, btw.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Ismael
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Haskell-Cafe mailing list
>>>>> Haskell-Cafe at haskell.org
>>>>> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ismael
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Ismael
>
>
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