[Haskell-cafe] GHC bug? Let with guards loops

Andreas Abel andreas.abel at ifi.lmu.de
Tue Jul 9 16:42:00 CEST 2013


Hi, is this a known bug or feature of GHC (7.4.1, 7.6.3)?:

I got a looping behavior in one of my programs and could not explain 
why.  When I rewrote an irrefutable let with guards to use a case 
instead, the loop disappeared.  Cut-down:

   works = case Just 1 of { Just x | x > 0 -> x }

   loops = let Just x | x > 0 = Just 1 in x

works returns 1, loops loops.  If x is unused on the rhs, the 
non-termination disappears.

   works' = let Just x | x > 0 = Just 1 in 42

Is this intended by the Haskell semantics or is this a bug?  I would 
have assumed that non-recursive let and single-branch case are 
interchangeable, but apparently, not...

Cheers,
Andreas

-- 
Andreas Abel  <><      Du bist der geliebte Mensch.

Theoretical Computer Science, University of Munich
Oettingenstr. 67, D-80538 Munich, GERMANY

andreas.abel at ifi.lmu.de
http://www2.tcs.ifi.lmu.de/~abel/



More information about the Haskell-Cafe mailing list