6.2.10. Rebindable syntax and the implicit Prelude import¶
- NoImplicitPrelude¶
- Since:
6.8.1
Don’t import
Preludeby default.
GHC normally imports Prelude.hi files for
you. If you’d rather it didn’t, then give it a -XNoImplicitPrelude
option. The idea is that you can then import a Prelude of your own. (But
don’t call it Prelude; the Haskell module namespace is flat, and you
must not conflict with any Prelude module.)
- RebindableSyntax¶
- Implies:
- Since:
7.0.1
Enable rebinding of a variety of usually-built-in operations.
Suppose you are importing a Prelude of your own in order to define your
own numeric class hierarchy. It completely defeats that purpose if the
literal “1” means “Prelude.fromInteger 1”, which is what the Haskell
Report specifies. So the RebindableSyntax extension causes the
following pieces of built-in syntax to refer to whatever is in scope,
not the Prelude versions:
An integer literal
368means “fromInteger (368::Integer)”, rather than “Prelude.fromInteger (368::Integer)”.Fractional literals are handled in just the same way, except that the translation is
fromRational (3.68::Rational).String literals are also handled the same way, except that the translation is
fromString ("368"::String).The equality test in an overloaded numeric pattern uses whatever
(==)is in scope.The subtraction operation, and the greater-than-or-equal test, in
n+kpatterns use whatever(-)and(>=)are in scope.Negation (e.g. “
- (f x)”) means “negate (f x)”, both in numeric patterns, and expressions.Conditionals (e.g. “
ife1thene2elsee3”) means “ifThenElsee1 e2 e3”. Howevercaseexpressions are unaffected.“Do” notation is translated using whatever functions
(>>=),(>>), andfail, are in scope (not the Prelude versions). List comprehensions,mdo(The recursive do-notation), and parallel array comprehensions, are unaffected.Arrow notation (see Arrow notation) uses whatever
arr,(>>>),first,app,(|||)andloopfunctions are in scope. But unlike the other constructs, the types of these functions must match the Prelude types very closely. Details are in flux; if you want to use this, ask!List notation, such as
[x,y]or[m..n]can also be treated via rebindable syntax if you use -XOverloadedLists; see Overloaded lists.An overloaded label “
#foo” means “fromLabel @"foo"”, rather than “GHC.OverloadedLabels.fromLabel @"foo"” (see Overloaded labels).
RebindableSyntax implies NoImplicitPrelude.
In all cases (apart from arrow notation), the static semantics should be
that of the desugared form, even if that is a little unexpected. For
example, the static semantics of the literal 368 is exactly that of
fromInteger (368::Integer); it’s fine for fromInteger to have
any of the types:
fromInteger :: Integer -> Integer
fromInteger :: forall a. Foo a => Integer -> a
fromInteger :: Num a => a -> Integer
fromInteger :: Integer -> Bool -> Bool
Be warned: this is an experimental facility, with fewer checks than
usual. Use -dcore-lint to typecheck the desugared program. If Core
Lint is happy you should be all right.
6.2.10.1. Things unaffected by RebindableSyntax¶
RebindableSyntax does not apply to any code generated from a
deriving clause or declaration. To see why, consider the following code:
{-# LANGUAGE RebindableSyntax, OverloadedStrings #-}
newtype Text = Text String
fromString :: String -> Text
fromString = Text
data Foo = Foo deriving Show
This will generate code to the effect of:
instance Show Foo where
showsPrec _ Foo = showString "Foo"
But because RebindableSyntax and OverloadedStrings
are enabled, the "Foo" string literal would now be of type Text, not
String, which showString doesn’t accept! This causes the generated
Show instance to fail to typecheck. It’s hard to imagine any scenario where
it would be desirable have RebindableSyntax behavior within
derived code, so GHC simply ignores RebindableSyntax entirely
when checking derived code.
6.2.11. Postfix operators¶
- PostfixOperators¶
- Since:
7.10.1
Allow the use of post-fix operators
The PostfixOperators extension enables a small extension to the syntax
of left operator sections, which allows you to define postfix operators.
The extension is this: the left section
(e !)
is equivalent (from the point of view of both type checking and execution) to the expression
((!) e)
(for any expression e and operator (!). The strict Haskell 98
interpretation is that the section is equivalent to
(\y -> (!) e y)
That is, the operator must be a function of two arguments. GHC allows it to take only one argument, and that in turn allows you to write the function postfix.
The extension does not extend to the left-hand side of function definitions; you must define such a function in prefix form.