


Once upon a time there was a lazy*, pure, functional programming language called Haskell. It was very careful to always keep its values and types strictly separated. So of course “type-level programming” was completely out of the question! …or was it?

In 1997, along came multi-parameter type classes, soon followed by functional dependencies. Suddenly, type-level programming became possible (and even fun and profitable, depending on your point of view). How did this work?

Whereas normal type classes represent predicates on types (each type is either an instance of a type class or it isn’t), multi-parameter type classes represent relations on types. For example, if we create some types to represent natural numbers,

  data Z
  data S n

we can define a multi-parameter type class Plus which encodes the addition relation on natural numbers:

  class Plus m n r

  instance Plus Z n n
  instance (Plus m n r) => Plus (S m) n (S r)

This says that for any types m, n, and r, (Z,n,n) are in the Plus relation, and (S m, n, S r) are in the Plus relation whenever (m,n,r) are. We can load this into ghci (after enabling a few extensions, namely MultiParamTypeClasses, FlexibleInstances, and EmptyDataDecls), but unfortunately we can’t yet actually use the Plus relation to do any type-level computation:

  *Main> :t undefined :: (Plus (S Z) (S Z) r) => r
  undefined :: (Plus (S Z) (S Z) r) => r :: (Plus (S Z) (S Z) r) => r

We asked for the type of something which has type r, given that the relation Plus (S Z) (S Z) r holds — but notice that ghci was not willing to simplify that constraint at all. The reason is that type classes are open — there could be lots of instances of the form Plus (S Z) (S Z) r for many different types r, and ghci has no idea which one we might want.

To the rescue come functional dependencies, which let us specify that some type class parameters are determined by others — in other words, that the relation determined by a multi-parameter type class is actually a function.

  class Plus m n r | m n -> r
  instance Plus Z n n

Here we’ve added the functional dependency m n -> r, which says that knowing m and n also determines r. In practice, this means that we are only allowed to have a single instance of Plus for any particular combination of m and n, and if ghc can determine m and n and finds an instance matching them, it will assume it is the only one and pick r to match. Now we can actually do some computation (after enabling UndecidableInstances):

  undefined :: (Plus (S Z) (S Z) r) => r :: S (S Z)

Aha! So 1 + 1 = 2, at the type level!

Type-level programming with multi-parameter type classes and functional dependencies has a strong resemblance to logic programming in languages like Prolog. We declare rules defining a number of relations, and then “running” a program consists of searching through the rules to find solutions for unconstrained variables in a given relation. (The one major difference is that GHC’s type class instance search doesn’t (yet?) do any backtracking.)

This is getting a bit long so I’ll break it up into a few posts. In the next installment, I’ll explain type families, which are a newer, alternative mechanism for type-level programming in Haskell.

* OK, OK, non-strict.


About Brent

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13 Responses to Typed type-level programming in Haskell, part I: functional dependencies

  1. I’ve been doing some thinking about this (while waiting in the long lines at the World Expo), and one of the things that I’m a little concerned about is making the errors for when things go wrong in type level programming comprehensible (which have a reputation—though I haven’t verified myself—for being helplessly arcane), so I’d love to see if you guys have been thinking about this problem. :-)

    • Brent says:

      Yes, error messages when doing type-level programming stuff can be quite hairy. It’s a very important problem, and one I admit we haven’t thought about too much at this point. But I definitely intend to think about it more at some point, once we have a working implementation. =)

    • beroal says:

      I second that. It will be a great day when instance inference (I prefer this term to “type inference” when talking about Haskell type classes) become a real programming language. Because “programming language” means debugging, formal semantics, extensions.

  2. I’m confused; what’s the point of the `r’ type parameter to the typeclass?

  3. What line of code generated this output?

    • Brent says:

      That is ghci’s response to the :t command right above it. It is informing us that the type of (undefined :: (Plus (S Z) (S Z) r) => r) is S (S Z). It’s a bit convoluted but this is how you can get ghci to do type-level computation, by asking for the type of undefined with a type annotation.

  4. Pingback: Typed type-level programming in Haskell, part II: type families « blog :: Brent -> [String]

  5. Brian says:

    I followed the example (http://hpaste.org/fastcgi/hpaste.fcgi/view?id=28672), but when I tried to run “:t undefined :: (Plus (S Z) (S Z) r) => r” command on ghci, I get the following error msg:

    Non type-variable argument in the constraint: Plus (S Z) (S Z) r
    (Use -XFlexibleContexts to permit this)
    In an expression type signature: (Plus (S Z) (S Z) r) => r
    In the expression: undefined :: (Plus (S Z) (S Z) r) => r

    Why does it complain about FlexibleContexts when I already enabled that pragma? Does this example not work on ghc 6.12.1?

    • Brent says:

      The LANGUAGE pragma only applies to the file itself; you need to enable the pragma separately in ghci to be able to use it in expressions that you type at the prompt. So either pass ghci the -XFlexibleInstances flag when you start it, or once ghci is running you can :set -XFlexibleInstances.

  6. Jim Stuttard says:

    ghc-7.6.3 needs :set -XFlexibleContexts as well.

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