[Haskell-cafe] reading existential types

9 Jul 2007

      Hi,

I have a problem I cannot solve. I have a data type that I need to be
readable, and the read instance derivable.

I need it readable because it is going to be a data type for
configuring at run time an application, and I want the application to
read it when booting up.

On the other side, I also need an existential type to be used within
this data type: it is a list that must be polymorphic somehow.

Since instances for existentially qualified types cannot be derived I
thought to create a type that could be easily read. But I'm not able to
write the parser, and I'm not sure if this is my fault or just a
limitation I'm trying to futilely overcome.

Below there's a piece of code that shows the problem.

I'd like to be able to use MT to build a list like:
[MT (T1a,1), MT (T1b,3)]
And I'd like to read str with:
read $ show str

No way, and the code below compiles. 

Substituting return (m) with return (MT m) leads to error messages
like: Ambiguous type variable `e' in the constraints

What am I getting wrong? Is just the parser or there's something
deeper?

Thanks for your kind attention.

All the best 
Andrea

the code:

----------------------------------------------------------------
{-# OPTIONS -fglasgow-exts #-}
module Test where
import Text.Read
import Text.ParserCombinators.ReadPrec

data MyData = 
    MD { rec1 :: String
       , rec2 :: String
       , rec3 :: [MyType]
       } deriving (Read,Show)

data MyType = forall e . (MyClass e, Show e, Read e) => MT (e,Int)

instance Show MyType where
    show (MT a) = "MT " ++ show a

class MyClass c where
    myShow :: c -> String

data TipoA = T1a
           | T2a
           | T3a
            deriving(Show,Read,Eq)

instance MyClass TipoA where
    myShow T1a = "t1a"
    myShow T2a = "t2a"
    myShow T3a = "t3a"

data TipoB = T1b
           | T2b
           | T3b
            deriving(Show,Read,Eq)

instance MyClass TipoB where
    myShow T1b = "t1b"
    myShow T2b = "t2b"
    myShow T3b = "t3b"

str :: MyData
str = MD {rec1 = "Ciao", rec2 = "Ciao Ciao", rec3 = [MT (T1a,1), MT (T1b,3)] }

instance Read MyType where
    readPrec = readMT

readMT :: ReadPrec MyType
readMT = prec 10 $ do
           Ident "MT" <- lexP
           parens $ do m <- readPrec
                       return (m)

[Haskell-cafe] reading existential types

Andrea Rossato