seq -> force

[John Meacham]

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 4:01 AM, Henning Thielemann
<lemming at henning-thielemann.de> wrote:
>
> For a datatype like
>  data T a = Cons a
> I could define 'seq' myself as
>  seq (Cons _) x = x
> if it would be a type class method.
>
> Is there a type class for generating the constructor independently from the
> input, as in:
>  force ~(Cons x) = Cons x
> ?

So force will "push down" the lazyness one level in some sense? Would this only
work for unary constructors of data declarations (not newtypes)?

so
force _|_ = Cons _|_

   John