José Romildo Malaquias wrote:
On Tue, Nov 14, 2000 at 05:02:30PM +0000, Malcolm Wallace wrote:
class C a where ty :: a -> String instance (Num a) => C a where ty _ = "NUM" instance C Integer where ty _ = "Integer"
Why GHC and NHC98 are more restrictive than Hugs?
The instances for (Num a=> a) and Integer overlap, and are therefore forbidden by Haskell'98.
But this is not relevant to my question. Removing the instance declaration
instance C Integer where ty _ = "Integer"
from the program (so that there is no instance overlapping now) does not help. Both GHC and NHC98 still complains with the same diagnostics as before. They are not accepting the instance declaration
instance (Num a) => C a where ty _ = "NUM"
because there is no non-type-variable component in the instantiated type "a" above.
Again, why they have this restrictions while Hugs has not?
GHC doesn't have this restriction either, but since it's not Haskell 98, you don't get it without some effort ;-). The following combination of flags will convince GHC to like your program: -fallow-overlapping-instances -fallow-undecidable-instances --Jeff