Predicate with forall quantifier in haskell? - haskell

I want to write the function which accepts values of types, which has instances of multiparameter type class together with every type. Something like this (signature of test function is illegal):
class Test a b
test :: forall a. (forall b. Test a b) => a -> a
Is there a way to express such restriction?

Depending on what you're trying to achieve, there may be a better solution.
But what you're asking is also possible, using the constraints package.
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleContexts, ConstraintKinds, MultiParamTypeClasses #-}
import Data.Constraint.Forall
class Test a b
test :: Forall (Test a) => a -> a
test = undefined

Related

How to 'show' unshowable types?

I am using data-reify and graphviz to transform an eDSL into a nice graphical representation, for introspection purposes.
As simple, contrived example, consider:
{-# LANGUAGE GADTs #-}
data Expr a where
Constant :: a -> Expr a
Map :: (other -> a) -> Expr a -> Expr a
Apply :: Expr (other -> a) -> Expr a -> Expr a
instance Functor Expr where
fmap fun val = Map fun val
instance Applicative Expr where
fun_expr <*> data_expr = Apply fun_expr data_expr
pure val = Constant val
-- And then some functions to optimize an Expr AST, evaluate Exprs, etc.
To make introspection nicer, I would like to print the values which are stored inside certain AST nodes of the DSL datatype.
However, in general any a might be stored in Constant, even those that do not implement Show. This is not necessarily a problem since we can constrain the instance of Expr like so:
instance Show a => Show (Expr a) where
...
This is not what I want however: I would still like to be able to print Expr even if a is not Show-able, by printing some placeholder value (such as just its type and a message that it is unprintable) instead.
So we want to do one thing if we have an a implementing Show, and another if a particular a does not.
Furthermore, the DSL also has the constructors Map and Apply which are even more problematic. The constructor is existential in other, and thus we cannot assume anything about other, a or (other -> a). Adding constraints to the type of other to the Map resp. Apply constructors would break the implementation of Functor resp. Applicative which forwards to them.
But here also I'd like to print for the functions:
a unique reference. This is always possible (even though it is not pretty as it requires unsafePerformIO) using System.Mem.StableName.
Its type, if possible (one technique is to use show (typeOf fun), but it requires that fun is Typeable).
Again we reach the issue where we want to do one thing if we have an f implementing Typeable and another if f does not.
How to do this?
Extra disclaimer: The goal here is not to create 'correct' Show instances for types that do not support it. There is no aspiration to be able to Read them later, or that print a != print b implies a != b.
The goal is to print any datastructure in a 'nice for human introspection' way.
The part I am stuck at, is that I want to use one implementation if extra constraints are holding for a resp. (other -> a), but a 'default' one if these do not exist.
Maybe type classes with FlexibleInstances, or maybe type families are needed here? I have not been able to figure it out (and maybe I am on the wrong track all together).
Not all problems have solutions. Not all constraint systems have a satisfying assignment.
So... relax the constraints. Store the data you need to make a sensible introspective function in your data structure, and use functions with type signatures like show, fmap, pure, and (<*>), but not exactly equal to them. If you need IO, use IO in your type signature. In short: free yourself from the expectation that your exceptional needs fit into the standard library.
To deal with things where you may either have an instance or not, store data saying whether you have an instance or not:
data InstanceOrNot c where
Instance :: c => InstanceOrNot c
Not :: InstanceOrNot c
(Perhaps a Constraint-kinded Either-alike, rather than Maybe-alike, would be more appropriate. I suspect as you start coding this you will discover what's needed.) Demand that clients that call notFmap and friends supply these as appropriate.
In the comments, I propose parameterizing your type by the constraints you demand, and giving a Functor instance for the no-constraints version. Here's a short example showing how that might look:
{-# LANGUAGE GADTs #-}
{-# LANGUAGE DataKinds #-}
{-# LANGUAGE TypeOperators #-}
{-# LANGUAGE TypeFamilies #-}
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}
import Data.Kind
type family All cs a :: Constraint where
All '[] a = ()
All (c:cs) a = (c a, All cs a)
data Lol cs a where
Leaf :: a -> Lol cs a
Fmap :: All cs b => (a -> b) -> Lol cs a -> Lol cs b
instance Functor (Lol '[]) where
fmap f (Leaf a) = Leaf (f a)
fmap f (Fmap g garg) = Fmap (f . g) garg
Great timing! Well-typed recently released a library which allows you to recover runtime information. They specifically have an example of showing arbitrary values. It's on github at https://github.com/well-typed/recover-rtti.
It turns out that this is a problem which has been recognized by multiple people in the past, known as the 'Constrained Monad Problem'. There is an elegant solution, explained in detail in the paper The Constrained-Monad Problem by Neil Sculthorpe and Jan Bracker and George Giorgidze and Andy Gill.
A brief summary of the technique: Monads (and other typeclasses) have a 'normal form'. We can 'lift' primitives (which are constrained any way we wish) into this 'normal form' construction, itself an existential datatype, and then use any of the operations available for the typeclass we have lifted into. These operations themselves are not constrained, and thus we can use all of Haskell's normal typeclass functions.
Finally, to turn this back into the concrete type (which again has all the constraints we are interested in) we 'lower' it, which is an operation that takes for each of the typeclass' operations a function which it will apply at the appropriate time.
This way, constraints from the outside (which are part of the functions supplied to the lowering) and constraints from the inside (which are part of the primitives we lifted) are able to be matched, and finally we end up with one big happy constrained datatype for which we have been able to use any of the normal Functor/Monoid/Monad/etc. operations.
Interestingly, while the intermediate operations are not constrained, to my knowledge it is impossible to write something which 'breaks' them as this would break the categorical laws that the typeclass under consideration should adhere to.
This is available in the constrained-normal Hackage package to use in your own code.
The example I struggled with, could be implemented as follows:
{-# LANGUAGE GADTs #-}
{-# LANGUAGE DataKinds #-}
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}
{-# LANGUAGE ScopedTypeVariables #-}
{-# LANGUAGE MultiParamTypeClasses #-}
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleContexts #-}
{-# LANGUAGE StandaloneDeriving #-}
{-# LANGUAGE ConstraintKinds #-}
{-# LANGUAGE KindSignatures #-}
{-# LANGUAGE UndecidableInstances #-}
module Example where
import Data.Dynamic
import Data.Kind
import Data.Typeable
import Control.Monad.ConstrainedNormal
-- | Required to have a simple constraint which we can use as argument to `Expr` / `Expr'`.
-- | This is definitely the part of the example with the roughest edges: I have yet to figure out
-- | how to make Haskell happy with constraints
class (Show a, Typeable a) => Introspectable a where {}
instance (Show a, Typeable a) => Introspectable a where {}
data Expr' (c :: * -> Constraint) a where
C :: a -> Expr' c a
-- M :: (a -> b) -> Expr' a -> Expr' b --^ NOTE: This one is actually never used as ConstrainedNormal will use the 'free' implementation based on A + C.
A :: c a => Expr' c (a -> b) -> Expr' c a -> Expr' c b
instance Introspectable a => Show (Expr' Introspectable a) where
show e = case e of
C x -> "(C " ++ show x ++ ")"
-- M f x = "(M " ++ show val ++ ")"
A fx x -> "(A " ++ show (typeOf fx) ++ " " ++ show x ++ ")"
-- | In user-facing code you'd not want to expose the guts of this construction
-- So let's introduce a 'wrapper type' which is what a user would normally interact with.
type Expr c a = NAF c (Expr' c) a
liftExpr :: c a => Expr' c a -> Expr c a
liftExpr expr = liftNAF expr
lowerExpr :: c a => Expr c a -> Expr' c a
lowerExpr lifted_expr = lowerNAF C A lifted_expr
constant :: Introspectable a => a -> Expr c a
constant val = pure val -- liftExpr (C val)
You could now for instance write
ghci> val = constant 10 :: Expr Introspectable Int
(C 10)
ghci> (+2) <$> val
(C 12)
ghci> (+) <$> constant 10 <*> constant 32 :: Expr Introspectable Int
And by using Data.Constraint.Trivial (part of the trivial-constrained library, although it is also possible to write your own 'empty constrained') one could instead write e.g.
ghci> val = constant 10 :: Expr Unconstrained Int
which will work just as before, but now val cannot be printed.
The one thing I have not yet figured out, is how to properly work with subsets of constraints (i.e. if I have a function that only requires Show, make it work with something that is Introspectable). Currently everything has to work with the 'big' set of constraints.
Another minor drawback is of course that you'll have to annotate the constraint type (e.g. if you do not want constraints, write Unconstrained manually), as GHC will otherwise complain that c0 is not known.
We've reached the goal of having a type which can be optionally be constrained to be printable, with all machinery that does not need printing to work also on all instances of the family of types including those that are not printable, and the types can be used as Monoids, Functors, Applicatives, etc just as you like.
I think it is a beautiful approach, and want to commend Neil Sculthorpe et al. for their work on the paper and the constrained-normal library that makes this possible. It's very cool!

Haskell instance signatures

I'm a complete newbie in Haskell so please be patient.
Let's say I've got this class
class Indexable i where
at :: i a p -> p -> a
Now let's say I want to implement that typeclass for this data type:
data Test a p = Test [a]
What I tried is:
instance Indexable Test where
at (Test l) p = l `genericIndex` p
However it didn't compile, because p needs to be an Integral, however as far as I understand, it's impossibile to add the type signature to instances. I tried to use InstanceSigs, but failed.
Any ideas?
here is a version where you add the index-type to the class using MultiParamTypeClasses
{-# LANGUAGE MultiParamTypeClasses #-}
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}
{-# LANGUAGE RankNTypes #-}
module Index where
import Data.List (genericIndex)
class Indexable i f where
at :: forall a . f a -> i -> a
data Test a = Test [a]
instance Integral i => Indexable i Test where
at (Test as) i = as `genericIndex` i
here I need the FlexibleInstances because of the way the instance is declared and RankNTypes for the forall a . ;)
assuming this is your expected behavior:
λ> let test = Test [1..5]
λ> test `at` 3
4
λ> test `at` 0
1
λ> test `at` (0 :: Int)
1
λ> test `at` (1 :: Integer)
2
Just for fun, here's a very different solution which doesn't require any changes to your class declaration. (N.B. This answer is for fun only! I do not advocate keeping your class as-is; it seems a strange class definition to me.) The idea here is to push the burden of proof off from the class instance to the person constructing a value of type Test p a; we will demand that constructing such a value will require an Integral p instance in scope.
All this code stays exactly the same (but with a new extension turned on):
{-# LANGUAGE GADTs #-}
import Data.List
class Indexable i where
at :: i a p -> p -> a
instance Indexable Test where
at (Test l) p = l `genericIndex` p
But the declaration of your data type changes just slightly to demand an Integral p instance:
data Test a p where
Test :: Integral p => [a] -> Test a p
You are actually trying to do something fairly advanced. If I understand what you want, you actually need a multiparameter typeclass here, because your type parameter "p" depends on "i": for a list indexed by integer you need "p" to be integral, but for a table indexed by strings you need it to be "String", or at least an instance of "Ord".
{-# LANGUAGE FunctionalDependencies #-}
{-# LANGUAGE MultiParamTypeClasses #-} -- Enable the language extensions.
class Indexable i p | i -> p where
at :: i a -> p -> a
This says that the class is for two types, "i" and "p", and if you know "i" then "p" follows automatically. So if "i" is a list the "p" has to be Int, and if "i" is a "Map String a" then "p" has to be "String".
instance Indexable [a] Int where
at = (!!)
This declares the combination of [a] and Int as being an instance of Indexable.
user2407038 has provided an alternative approach using "type families", which is a more recent and sophisticated version of multiparameter type classes.
You can use associated type families and constraint kinds:
import GHC.Exts(Constraint)
class Indexable i where
type IndexableCtr i :: * -> Constraint
at :: IndexableCtr i p => i a p -> p -> a
instance Indexable Test where
type IndexableCtr Test = Integral
at (Test l) p = l `genericIndex` p
This defines the class Indexable with an associated type IndexableCtr which
is used to constraint the type of at.

How can I use restricted constraints with GADTs?

I have the following code, and I would like this to fail type checking:
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}
{-# LANGUAGE GADTs #-}
{-# LANGUAGE RankNTypes #-}
import Control.Lens
data GADT e a where
One :: Greet e => String -> GADT e String
Two :: Increment e => Int -> GADT e Int
class Greet a where
_Greet :: Prism' a String
class Increment a where
_Increment :: Prism' a Int
instance Greet (Either String Int) where
_Greet = _Left
instance Increment (Either String Int) where
_Increment = _Right
run :: GADT e a -> Either String Int
run = go
where
go (One x) = review _Greet x
go (Two x) = review _Greet "Hello"
The idea is that each entry in the GADT has an associated error, which I'm modelling with a Prism into some larger structure. When I "interpret" this GADT, I provide a concrete type for e that has instances for all of these Prisms. However, for each individual case, I don't want to be able to use instances that weren't declared in the constructor's associated context.
The above code should be an error, because when I pattern match on Two I should learn that I can only use Increment e, but I'm using Greet. I can see why this works - Either String Int has an instance for Greet, so everything checks out.
I'm not sure what the best way to fix this is. Maybe I can use entailment from Data.Constraint, or perhaps there's a trick with higher rank types.
Any ideas?
The problem is you're fixing the final result type, so the instance exists and the type checker can find it.
Try something like:
run :: GADT e a -> e
Now the result type can't pick the instance for review and parametricity enforces your invariant.

Using constraint kinds and type families with 'limited' constraints

I'm working on an applicative functor that contains a monoid to "view" the execution. However, sometimes I don't care about this part at all, so the choice of monoid is irrelevant as it will never be consumed. I've simplified what I have into:
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}
{-# LANGUAGE ConstraintKinds #-}
{-# LANGUAGE MultiParamTypeClasses #-}
{-# LANGUAGE TypeFamilies #-}
import GHC.Exts
class Render a b where render :: a -> b
instance Render a () where render = const ()
class Merge a where
type Renderer a b :: Constraint
merge :: Renderer a b => a -> b
data Foo = Foo Bool
instance Merge Foo where
type (Renderer Foo) m = (Render Bool m)
merge (Foo b) = render b
Render is used to transform various as into a single b. Merge is a big simplification of my actual functor, but the point is it contains a type family/constraint and my intention of that is to specify exactly what Renderers a Merge requires.
Now, I might want to "run" the Merge, but discard the view, which is akin to something like:
runFoo :: Merge a => a -> Int
runFoo x = case merge x of () -> 5
But this will fail because:
Could not deduce (Renderer a ()) arising from a use of merge
I chose () as my monoid because forall a, we have an instance of Render a (). So if there was a way to say that Merge a just means a collection Render constraints then this would work fine. Of course, Merge a is more general than that - it could add arbitrary constraints, which explains the compilation error.
Is there anyway to achieve what I want without changing the signature of runFoo?
This might not scale if you have a lot of these cases, but this works:
class Renderer a () => Merge a where
...

Haskell -- get TypeRep from concrete type instance

I want to write a function with this type signature:
getTypeRep :: Typeable a => t a -> TypeRep
where the TypeRep will be the type representation for a, not for t a. That is, the compiler should automatically return the correct type representation at any call sites [to getTypeRep], which will have concrete types for a.
To add some context, I want to create a "Dynamic type" data type, with the twist that it will remember the top-level type, but not its parameter. For example, I want to turn MyClass a into Dynamic MyClass, and the above function will be used to create instances of Dynamic MyClass that store a representation of the type parameter a.
Well, how about using scoped type variables to select the inner component:
{-# LANGUAGE ExplicitForAll #-}
{-# LANGUAGE ScopedTypeVariables #-}
import Data.Dynamic
import Data.Typeable
getTypeRep :: forall t a . Typeable a => t a -> TypeRep
getTypeRep _ = typeOf (undefined :: a)
Works for me:
*Main> getTypeRep (Just ())
()
*Main> getTypeRep (Just 7)
Integer
*Main> getTypeRep ([True])
Bool
Interesting design.
On a tangential note to Don's solution, notice that code rarely require ScopedTypeVariables. It just makes the solution cleaner (but less portable). The solution without scoped types is:
{-# LANGUAGE ExplicitForAll #-}
import Data.Typeable
helper :: t a -> a
helper _ = undefined
getTypeRep :: forall t a. Typeable a => t a -> TypeRep
getTypeRep = typeOf . helper
This function (now) exists in Data.Typeable typeRep

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