[Haskell-cafe] "Casting" newtype to base type?

1 Jul 2013

      Hello Cafe!

I had a (simplified) record

   data P = P {
     a :: String,
     b :: String,
     c :: IO String
     } deriving (Show, Eq)

but to get automatic deriving of 'Show' and 'Eq' for 'data P' I have created 
'newtype IOS' and its 'Show' and 'Eq' instances

   newtype IOS = IO String
   instance Show (IOS) where show _ = "(IO String) function"
   instance Eq   (IOS) where _ == _ = True

(the easiest 'instance Show (IO String) where ...' produces "orphan instance")

and changed 'data P' to

   data P = P {
     a :: String,
     b :: String,
     c :: IOS
     } deriving (Show, Eq)

but now when I try to set 'c' field in

   fun :: FilePath -> P -> IO P
   fun path p = do
     b <- doesFileExist path
     ...
     return $ p {c = readFile path}

I get error
   Couldn't match expected type `IOS' with actual type `IO String'

which is correct.

So, the question is:

   Is it possible to somehow "cast" 'IO String' to 'IOS',
   or in some other way set 'c' field to an 'IO String' function
   so that it can be later used such as 'content <- c p'.

Thanks

[Haskell-cafe] "Casting" newtype to base type?

Vlatko Basic