[Haskell-cafe] Puzzling instance method definitions in Data.Sequence.Internal

[Viktor Dukhovni]

In `containers`, Data.Sequence.Internal defines a Foldable instance for `Seq`
with method definitions for `length` and `null` that I'm struggling to understand:

   https://github.com/haskell/containers/blob/master/containers/src/Data/Sequence/Internal.hs#L410-L415

#if MIN_VERSION_base(4,8,0)
    length = length
    {-# INLINE length #-}
    null   = null
    {-# INLINE null #-}
#endif

further down the file there are also explicit top-level definitions for these
functions:

   https://github.com/haskell/containers/blob/master/containers/src/Data/Sequence/Internal.hs#L2161-L2168

-- | \( O(1) \). Is this the empty sequence?
null            :: Seq a -> Bool
null (Seq EmptyT) = True
null _            =  False

-- | \( O(1) \). The number of elements in the sequence.
length          :: Seq a -> Int
length (Seq xs) =  size xs

So the intent seems clear, but I don't understand how the instance method
definitions are valid.  The imports of Both Prelude and Data.Foldable don't
include `length` or `null`:

   https://github.com/haskell/containers/blob/master/containers/src/Data/Sequence/Internal.hs#L194-L213

So the RHS definitions should plausibly resolve to the top-level
functions, but when I try to define a similar type class instance
GHC tells me:

	‘method’ is not a (visible) method of class ‘Class’

and in any case I'd expect `length = length` to yield an infinite
loop, regardless of any other bindings in the outer scope.  How
is Data.Sequence.Internal getting away with this???

-- 
	Viktor.