#9637: Type level programming needs an error function -------------------------------------+------------------------------------- Reporter: augustss | Owner: Type: feature request | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: Compiler | Version: 7.8.3 Keywords: | Operating System: Architecture: Unknown/Multiple | Unknown/Multiple Difficulty: Unknown | Type of failure: Blocked By: | None/Unknown Related Tickets: | Test Case: | Blocking: | Differential Revisions: -------------------------------------+------------------------------------- When doing type level programming you often need a way to report errors. I suggest a closed type family called Error with special semantics. It is kinded like this Error :: Symbol -> k1 -> k2 If this function has to be reduced during constraint solving it will simply generate a type error with the given string and printing the type as extra information (this kind can be generalized a lot if we want to). I've found that having this function gives more accurate and earlier error messages. -- Ticket URL: http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/9637 GHC http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ The Glasgow Haskell Compiler