[Haskell-cafe] Pointer equality for nullary constructors

[David Feuer]

Can I use reallyUnsafePtrEquality# reliably to identify whether a value is
a nullary constructor of a particular type? For example, if I have

data Foo = Foo

Can I write

isFoo :: a -> Bool
isFoo !a = isTrue# (reallyUnsafePtrEquality# a Foo)

instead of

isFoo :: forall a. Typeable a => a -> Bool
isFoo a
  | Just Refl <- eqTypeRep (typeRep @a) (typeRep @Foo)
  , Foo <- a
  = True
  | otherwise = False

The reason I'm asking is because this would let me (potentially) raiseIO# a
nullary constructor and then catch# it and see if it was what I was looking
for rather than having to open a SomeException to get to an Exception
dictionary, open that to get a TypeRep, and then peer inside that to check
a Fingerprint. That is, I'd get lighter-weight exceptions that only carry
the information I actually need.

Thanks,
David
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