You have declared that foo is *any* type that has a ToField instance, allowing the caller of foo to determine the type at their will. However, your implementation of foo is more specific and requires a is actually Bool and nothing else.

On 14 Aug 2013 10:24, "Bryan Vicknair" <bryanvick@gmail.com> wrote:
postgresql-simple declares Bool as an instance of the ToField class.  The
compiler can't deduce that given this simple code however:

  import Database.PostgreSQL.Simple.ToField (ToField(..))

  foo :: (ToField a) => a
  foo = True


It fails with this error:

  Db.hs:64:7:
      Could not deduce (a ~ Bool)
      from the context (ToField a)
        bound by the type signature for foo :: ToField a => a
        at Db.hs:63:8-23
        `a' is a rigid type variable bound by
            the type signature for foo :: ToField a => a at Db.hs:63:8
      In the expression: True
      In an equation for `foo': foo = True
  Failed, modules loaded: none.

What am I missing?

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