2012/2/25 Andres Löh
<andres.loeh@googlemail.com>
> Would you have an example of a type for which it would be useful to have
> a DeepSeq instance, and that would require a V1 instance? I cannot think
> of one now; I originaly thought it would be necessary to permit deriving
> DeepSeq instances for types tagged with "void" types, but as José
> explained, in that case, the V1 instance isn't needed because those void
> types don't show up in the representation.
While void datatypes are rare, it just doesn't make sense to exclude
them. It's an arbitrary restriction. Here's a constructed example:
data X a = C1 Int | C2 a
data Z -- empty
type Example = X Z
We're using Z as a parameter to X in order to exclude the use of the
C2 case. Without a V1 case, you cannot use deepSeq on values of type
Example.
Yes, I agree. There should be a V1 instance, and it should return `undefined`. This gives the expected behavior of `seq` on an empty datatype, I think. If there is no V1 instance, you'll get a type-checking error (no instance for V1), preventing generic deepseq on any datatype that happens to use an empty datatype in its definition.
Cheers,
Pedro