Deriving Show instance with ADT that has phantom type

16 May 2015

      Going through the Data Types Ala Carte paper I found this definition:

    data Expr f = In (f (Expr f))

I tried to use "deriving Show"...

    data Expr f = In (f (Expr f)) deriving Show

I found out that doesn't work with ADT's that have phantom types.

I tried StandaloneDeriving too since GHC recommended it:

    {-# LANGUAGE StandaloneDeriving #-}
    data Expr f = In (f (Expr f)) deriving Show
    instance deriving Show (Expr f)

Got this error:

    src/Main.hs:32:1-31: No instance for (Show (f (Expr f))) …
          arising from a use of ‘showsPrec’
        In the second argument of ‘(.)’, namely ‘(showsPrec 11 b1)’
        In the second argument of ‘showParen’, namely
          ‘((.) (showString "In ") (showsPrec 11 b1))’
        In the expression:
          showParen ((a >= 11)) ((.) (showString "In ") (showsPrec 11 b1))
        When typechecking the code for  ‘showsPrec’
          in a standalone derived instance for ‘Show (Expr f)’:
          To see the code I am typechecking, use -ddump-deriv
    Compilation failed.

Here is the derived instance output from ghc -ddump-simple:

    Derived instances:
      instance GHC.Show.Show (Main.Expr f_aq1) where
        GHC.Show.showsPrec a_azP (Main.In b1_azQ)
          = GHC.Show.showParen
              ((a_azP GHC.Classes.>= 11))
              ((GHC.Base..)
                 (GHC.Show.showString "In ") (GHC.Show.showsPrec 11 b1_azQ))
        GHC.Show.showList = GHC.Show.showList__ (GHC.Show.showsPrec 0)

Didn't work. Can this be derived? Will I need to manually make instances?

Cody Goodman

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