Frank wrote:

I have observed the error message (ghci 6.4)

Functional dependencies conflict between instance declarations: LocTest.hs:16:0: instance B S Bool LocTest.hs:22:0: instance (F f, B a b) => B (f a) (f b)

when I changed in an instance from a simple type to a type with a parameter (i.e. from Int to (Int, Bool)).

The following minimal program demonstrates the problem:

an instance with type S (= T Float) conflicts with B (f a) (f b)

whereas the comparable instance with data R (= R Float) does not.

Is this intentional? How can it be avoided? Help is greatly appreciated!

Andrew

---------------------------------------- class F f where m2 :: (a -> b -> c) -> f a -> f b -> f c --zipWith

class B a b | a -> b where dist2 :: a -> a -> b

instance B S Bool where -- line 16 dist2 a d = True

instance B R Float where dist2 a d = 1

instance (F f, B a b) => B (f a) (f b) where -- line 22 dist2 a b = m2 dist2 a b

data T f = T f type S = T Float data R = R Float

Suppose you later declared T as an instance of F so that one particular F f would be F T. Then if S = T Float then one instantiation of (f a) could be (T a) where f = T, so the two instantiated instance decls would look like: instance B (T Float) Bool where -- line 16 instance B (T a) (T b) where -- line 22 and the functional dependency says that the 'b' (in the class decl) would be Bool by line 16 and T b for some b by line 22 if 'a' was instantiated to Float. However there is no 'b' such that Bool = T b. Regards, Brian.