Generalize MonadIO to MonadBase

19 Apr 2010

      Hello,

(This should actually be a reply to the "Move MonadIO to base"
thread[1] but I didn't want to break up the extremely interesting
discussion on the MonadTransMorph class)

Would it be useful if we got rid of MonadIO:

class (Monad m) => MonadIO m where liftIO :: IO a -> m a

and replace it with the generalization:

class (Monad m, Monad n) => MonadBase m n | m -> n where inBase :: n a -> m a

which would allow lifting not just IO but any base monad into a stack
of monad transformers.

It could be implemented as follows:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
{-# LANGUAGE MultiParamTypeClasses #-}
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleContexts #-}
{-# LANGUAGE FunctionalDependencies #-}
{-# LANGUAGE UndecidableInstances #-}

module MonadBase where

import Data.Monoid ( Monoid )
import Control.Monad.ST ( ST )

import Control.Monad.Trans.Class ( MonadTrans, lift )

import Control.Monad.Trans.Cont     ( ContT )
import Control.Monad.Trans.Error    ( ErrorT, Error )
import Control.Monad.Trans.Identity ( IdentityT )
import Control.Monad.Trans.List     ( ListT )
import Control.Monad.Trans.Maybe    ( MaybeT )
import Control.Monad.Trans.RWS      ( RWST )
import Control.Monad.Trans.Reader   ( ReaderT )
import Control.Monad.Trans.State    ( StateT )
import Control.Monad.Trans.Writer   ( WriterT )

class (Monad m, Monad n) => MonadBase m n | m -> n where
    inBase :: n a -> m a

instance MonadBase IO    IO      where inBase = id
instance MonadBase Maybe Maybe   where inBase = id
instance MonadBase []    []      where inBase = id
instance MonadBase (ST s) (ST s) where inBase = id
-- etc.

-- This would be nice but will cause lots of trouble:
-- instance Monad m => MonadBase m m where inBase = id

liftInBase :: (MonadTrans t, MonadBase m n) => n a -> t m a
liftInBase = lift . inBase

instance (MonadBase m n)           => MonadBase (ContT r     m) n
where inBase = liftInBase
instance (MonadBase m n)           => MonadBase (IdentityT   m) n
where inBase = liftInBase
instance (MonadBase m n)           => MonadBase (ListT       m) n
where inBase = liftInBase
instance (MonadBase m n)           => MonadBase (MaybeT      m) n
where inBase = liftInBase
instance (MonadBase m n)           => MonadBase (ReaderT r   m) n
where inBase = liftInBase
instance (MonadBase m n)           => MonadBase (StateT s    m) n
where inBase = liftInBase
instance (MonadBase m n, Error e)  => MonadBase (ErrorT e    m) n
where inBase = liftInBase
instance (MonadBase m n, Monoid w) => MonadBase (RWST r w s  m) n
where inBase = liftInBase
instance (MonadBase m n, Monoid w) => MonadBase (WriterT w   m) n
where inBase = liftInBase

{-# DEPRECATED liftIO "Use inBase instead." #-}
liftIO :: MonadBase m IO => IO a -> m a
liftIO = inBase

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I noticed that MonadLib also provides this class[2].

regards

Bas

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.libraries/12877
[2] http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/monadLib/3.6.1/doc/html/MonadLib...

Generalize MonadIO to MonadBase

Bas van Dijk