#8673: GHC could generate GADT record selectors in more cases ------------------------------------+------------------------------------- Reporter: simonpj | Owner: Type: feature request | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: Compiler | Version: 7.6.3 Keywords: | Operating System: Unknown/Multiple Architecture: Unknown/Multiple | Type of failure: None/Unknown Difficulty: Unknown | Test Case: Blocked By: | Blocking: Related Tickets: | ------------------------------------+------------------------------------- Philip Holzenspies writes (in email to ghc-users): I was playing around with GADT-records again and ran into behaviour that I'm not sure is intentional. Given this program: {{{ {-#LANGUAGE GADTs #-} data FooBar x a where Foo :: { fooBar :: a } -> FooBar Char a Bar :: { fooBar :: a } -> FooBar Bool a }}} GHC tells me this: {{{ foo.hs:3:1: Constructors Foo and Bar have a common field `fooBar', but have different result types In the data declaration for `FooBar' Failed, modules loaded: none. }}} The user guide does say (section 7.4.7): "However, for GADTs there is the following additional constraint: every constructor that has a field f must have the same result type (modulo alpha conversion)." So this behaviour is documented in the user guide. However, it seems reasonable that in the case above, where all the relevant variables are exposed in the result type of both constructors, this should be perfectly typeable. In other words, shouldn't GHC be able to derive a type that is simply: {{{ fooBar :: FooBar x a -> a }}} ? Is this something that was simply never implemented, but could be, or is this not decidable or prohibitively computationally complex? -- Ticket URL: http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/8673 GHC http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ The Glasgow Haskell Compiler