On Sat, Nov 18, 2006 at 04:46:24PM -0500, Peter Tanski wrote:
The simple problem with Haskell and Integer is that, according to the Standard, Integer is a primitive: it is consequently implemented as part of the runtime system (RTS), not the Prelude or any library (though the interface to Integer is in the base library). For GHC, compiling with -fno-implicit-prelude and explicitly importing only those functions and types you need the won't get rid of Integer. Possible solutions would be to implement the Integer 'primitive' as a separate library and import it into the Prelude or base libraries, then perform an optimisation step where base functions are only linked in when needed. Except for the optimisation step, this actually makes the job easier since Integer functions would be called using the FFI and held in ForeignPtrs. (I have already done the FFI- thing for other libraries and a primitive version of the replacement.)
there is no requirement that Integer be a primitive. a plain old implementation in haskell or via the FFI is certainly a valid one. John -- John Meacham - ⑆repetae.net⑆john⑈