Is there a way to declare a type family to be injective? I have
data Z data S n
type family n :+: m type instance Z :+: m = m type instance S n :+: m = S (n :+: m)
My intent is that (:+:) really is injective in each argument (holding the other as fixed), but I don't know how to persuade GHC, leading to some compilation errors like the following: Couldn't match expected type `m :+: n' against inferred type `m :+: n1' NB: `:+:' is a type function, and may not be injective I realize that someone could add more type instances for (:+:), breaking injectivity. Come to think of it, I don't know how GHC could even figure out that the two instances above do not overlap on the right-hand sides. Since this example is fairly common, I wonder: does anyone have a trick for avoiding the injectivity issue? Thanks, - Conal