Hi,
just so you know that I have almost no idea what I'm doing, I'm a complete Haskell noob, but trying a bit I came up with this before getting stuck:
class Drawable a where
draw :: a -> String
data Rectangle = Rectangle { rx, ry, rw, rh :: Double }
deriving (Eq, Show)
instance Drawable Rectangle where
draw (Rectangle rx ry rw rh) = "Rect"
data Circle = Circle { cx, cy, cr :: Double }
deriving (Eq, Show)
instance Drawable Circle where
draw (Circle cx cy cr) = "Circle"
data Shape = ???
And was able to complete the definition:
data Shape = forall a. Drawable a => Shape a
Testing it with a silly example:
main :: IO ()
main = do putStr (test shapes)
test :: [Shape] -> String
test [] = ""
test ((Shape x):xs) = draw x ++ test xs
shapes :: [Shape]
shapes = [ Shape (Rectangle 1 1 4 4) , Shape (Circle 2 2 5) ]
Don't know if this helps...
Cheers,
-Tako
On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 07:49, Tad Doxsee
<tad.doxsee@gmail.com> wrote:
I've been trying to learn Haskell for a while now, and recently
wanted to do something that's very common in the object oriented
world, subtype polymorphism with a heterogeneous collection.
It took me a while, but I found a solution that meets
my needs. It's a combination of solutions that I saw on the
web, but I've never seen it presented in a way that combines both
in a short note. (I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but it's off the beaten
path that I've been struggling along.) The related solutions
are
1. section 3.6 of http://homepages.cwi.nl/~ralf/OOHaskell/paper.pdf
2. The GADT comment at the end of section 4 of
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Heterogenous_collections
I'm looking for comments on the practicality of the solution,
and references to better explanations of, extensions to, or simpler
alternatives for what I'm trying to achieve.
Using the standard example, here's the code:
data Rectangle = Rectangle { rx, ry, rw, rh :: Double }
deriving (Eq, Show)
drawRect :: Rectangle -> String
drawRect r = "Rect (" ++ show (rx r) ++ ", " ++ show (ry r) ++ ") -- "
++ show (rw r) ++ " x " ++ show (rh r)
data Circle = Circle {cx, cy, cr :: Double}
deriving (Eq, Show)
drawCirc :: Circle -> String
drawCirc c = "Circ (" ++ show (cx c) ++ ", " ++ show (cy c)++ ") -- "
++ show (cr c)
r1 = Rectangle 0 0 3 2
r2 = Rectangle 1 1 4 5
c1 = Circle 0 0 5
c2 = Circle 2 0 7
rs = [r1, r2]
cs = [c1, c2]
rDrawing = map drawRect rs
cDrawing = map drawCirc cs
-- shapes = rs ++ cs
Of course, the last line won't compile because the standard Haskell list
may contain only homogeneous types. What I wanted to do is create a list of
circles and rectangles, put them in a list, and draw them. It was easy
for me to find on the web and in books how to do that if I controlled
all of the code. What wasn't immediately obvious to me was how to do that
in a library that could be extended by others. The references noted
previously suggest this solution:
class ShapeC s where
draw :: s -> String
copyTo :: s -> Double -> Double -> s
-- needs {-# LANGUAGE GADTs #-}
data ShapeD where
ShapeD :: ShapeC s => s -> ShapeD
instance ShapeC ShapeD where
draw (ShapeD s) = draw s
copyTo (ShapeD s) x y = ShapeD (copyTo s x y)
mkShape :: ShapeC s => s -> ShapeD
mkShape s = ShapeD s
instance ShapeC Rectangle where
draw = drawRect
copyTo (Rectangle _ _ rw rh) x y = Rectangle x y rw rh
instance ShapeC Circle where
draw = drawCirc
copyTo (Circle _ _ r) x y = Circle x y r
r1s = ShapeD r1
r2s = ShapeD r2
c1s = ShapeD c1
c2s = ShapeD c2
shapes1 = [r1s, r2s, c1s, c2s]
drawing1 = map draw shapes1
shapes2 = map mkShape rs ++ map mkShape cs
drawing2 = map draw shapes2
-- copy the shapes to the origin then draw them
shapes3 = map (\s -> copyTo s 0 0) shapes2
drawing3 = map draw shapes3
Another user could create a list of shapes that included triangles by creating
a ShapeC instance for his triangle and using mkShape to add it to a list of
ShapeDs.
Is the above the standard method in Haskell for creating an extensible
heterogeneous list of "objects" that share a common interface? Are there better
approaches? (I ran into a possible limitation to this approach that I plan
to ask about later if I can't figure it out myself.)
- Tad
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