[Haskell-beginners] instances of different kinds

27 Aug 2010

      Hi--

More silly typeclass questions.  I'm not sure the right way to ask it, so I'll start with a failed code snippet:

data Foo a = Foo a 

class TwoPi a where
  div2pi :: (Floating b) => a -> b

instance (Floating a) => TwoPi (Foo a) where
  div2pi (Foo a) = a / (2*pi)

instance TwoPi Float where
  div2pi a = a / (2*pi)

This code is obviously meaningless, but I'm trying to figure out how you can create instances of a typeclass for data types of different kinds.

I have a similar piece of code that works:

data Foo a = Foo a 

class Testable a where
  isPos :: a -> Bool

instance (Ord b, Num b) => Testable (Foo b) where
  isPos (Foo b) = b > 0

instance Testable Float where
  isPos a = a > 0

One obvious difference is that the type of isPos is a -> Bool, with a defined type as the return.  I'd rather not commit to a specific Floating type up front (I'd prefer sometimes Float sometimes Double, depending on the 'a' in Foo a, but trying to declare it as Float doesn't help me.  This fails:

data Foo a = Foo a 

class TwoPi a where
  div2pi :: a -> Float

instance (Floating b) => TwoPi (Foo b) where
  div2pi (Foo b) = b / (2*pi)

instance TwoPi Float where
  div2pi a = a / (2*pi)

The errors I'm getting are various permutations of:

    Couldn't match expected type `Float' against inferred type `b'
      `b' is a rigid type variable bound by
          the instance declaration at gcbTestBad.hs:8:19
    In the expression: b / (2 * pi)
    In the definition of `div2pi': div2pi (Foo b) = b / (2 * pi)
    In the instance declaration for `TwoPi (Foo b)'

What is the difference between these last two cases ("a -> Bool" and "a -> Float"), and is there anyway to make "a -> b" work? 

Thanks--
 Greg