[Haskell-cafe] Extension and parameterized classes

[Pierre_van_der_Laar (Functional Account)]

Dear Haskell experts,

I working  on a large Haskell project on Model Based Testing (see https://github.com/TorXakis/TorXakis)
and I would like to get feedback on a design issue I have related to extension and parameterized classes.
I will describe a small simplified example to illustrate the issue
and I appreciate any feedback.

I have a class that extends another class as follows:

class Base a => Extend a where
    -- | Constructor from Base
    fromBase :: Base b => b -> a

I can define an instance of Extend that hides the Base implementation as follows:

{-# LANGUAGE ExistentialQuantification #-}
data BaseHidden = forall a . Base a =>
                            BaseHidden { _base :: a
                                       , ... -- additional extension info
                                       }

instance Extend BaseHidden where
    fromBase b = BaseHidden b ... -- additional extension initialization

I can define a parameterized data class of which the parameter is the type of the Base class as follows:
data BaseExpose a = BaseExpose { _base :: a
                               , ... -- additional extension info
                               }

With this parameterized data class, I can make the following fromBase' function
fromBase' :: Base a => a -> BaseExpose a
fromBase' a = BaseExpose a ... -- additional extension initialization

My question is can I make BaseExpose an instance of Extend?

I am aware that the signature of fromBase states that for all 'b' of Base
an Extend of type 'a' must be able to be made.
Yet, in my case 'a' is a parameterized class 'BaseExpose x' and
since the type of Extend is provided (it is a constructor)
I think it is acceptable that 'BaseExpose b' is returned as type.
I have looked at some extensions, such as InstanceSigs, yet I found no solution.

Does anybody on this mailing list have an answer or solution for me?
Also experience in a large project related to maintenance for the two alternatives (hiding or exposing types) is appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
    Pierre van de Laar

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