[GHC] #8426: one-shot compilation + TH doesn't see instances that is seen in batch mode

9 Oct 2013

      #8426: one-shot compilation + TH doesn't see instances that is seen in batch mode
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       Reporter:  errge                       |             Owner:
           Type:  bug                         |            Status:  new
       Priority:  normal                      |         Milestone:
      Component:  Template Haskell            |           Version:  7.6.3
       Keywords:                              |  Operating System:
   Architecture:  Unknown/Multiple            |  Unknown/Multiple
     Difficulty:  Moderate (less than a day)  |   Type of failure:  Other
     Blocked By:                              |         Test Case:
Related Tickets:  #7867                       |          Blocking:
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 Haskell prime and Haskell98 both states that instances are always seen if
 there is any chain of imports leading from the current module to the
 instance.

 http://darcs.haskell.org/haskell-prime-report/report/haskell-report-
 html/modules.html#import-instances

 The ghc manual contains a discussion why this specification is too
 performance heavy to näively implement and contains the definition of
 orphanness and an algorithm to reproduce the specification with better
 performance.

 http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.6.3/html/users_guide/separate-
 compilation.html#orphan-modules

 Unfortunately this cleverness breaks template haskell.  Namely, if:
   - `Class.hs` contains a class,
   - `NonOrphan.hs` contains a data that implements the class,
   - `Importer.hs` just imports `NonOrphan.hs`,
   - `Main.hs` imports `Importer.hs`,
   - `Main.hs` reifies the class;
 then:
   - one-shot compilation's reify doesn't see the instance,
   - batch compilation's reify sees the instance.

 This ambiguity is shown in the attached tgz.

 Furthermore if `NonOrphan.hs` is in a separate package, then of course
 even batch compilation mode wouldn't reify the instance correctly.  In
 that case there is no disambiguity between one-shot and batch, simply both
 is missing the info.

 I propose to solve this by enforcing a loading of all the interface files
 for every import transitively for the current module, when we meet an open
 type family or class reification request in template haskell's reify
 handler in `TcSplice.hs`.

 So I propose to keep the optimization of orphan instances and use it 99.9%
 of the time.  We would only ever go on the quest of reading interface
 files for every import transitively when the user tries to reify something
 where we have to return an instance list.  This means that TH compilations
 that reify types will get a little bit slower in exchange of being correct
 and unambiguous.  Compilation time in cases when TH reification is not
 used will not change.

 I volunteer to prepare the patch, but would like to hear others first.

 So, any opinions, alternative ideas?

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Ticket URL: http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/8426
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