And to answer my own question, it seems

instance HasSourceText SourceText where
  noSourceText    = NoSourceText
  sourceText s    = SourceText s
     getSourceText a = a


And then applying the appropriate constraint at the use-site does the job.

So

noSyntaxExpr :: (HasSourceText (XHsString x)) => SyntaxExpr x id

Alan



On 18 May 2017 at 09:04, Alan & Kim Zimmerman <alan.zimm@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all

I am experimenting with Trees that Grow [1] in the context of the GHC HsSyn AST, and wanting to express that a given extension point needs to have certain properties.

The specific case is to be able to contain a SourceText, in the context of HsLit

So I have (stripped down)

data GHCX

type family XHsString x

type instance XHsString GHCX = SourceText

class HasSourceText a where
  -- Provide setters to mimic existing constructors
  noSourceText  :: a
  sourceText    :: String -> a

  getSourceText :: a -> SourceText

instance HasSourceText (XHsString GHCX) where
  noSourceText    = NoSourceText
  sourceText s    = SourceText s
     getSourceText a = a


But this gives an error

compiler/hsSyn/HsExtension.hs:80:10: error:
    • Illegal type synonym family application in instance:
        XHsString GHCX
    • In the instance declaration for ‘HasSourceText (XHsString GHCX)’

Is there some way to achieve this, or is it simply impossible?

The full work-in-progress source is here[2]

Regards
  Alan