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Consider this test case:

module Main (main) where

fun :: Either Int String -> Either String String
fun x = case x of
    Left int -> Left (show int)
    Right str -> Right str
{-# NOINLINE fun #-}

main :: IO ()
main = do
    l <- getLine
    print $ fun (Right l)

The core we get for fun looks like:

Main.fun [InlPrag=NOINLINE]
  :: Data.Either.Either GHC.Types.Int GHC.Base.String
     -> Data.Either.Either GHC.Base.String GHC.Base.String
[GblId, Arity=1, Caf=NoCafRefs, Str=DmdType <S,1*U>]
Main.fun =
  \ (x_aur :: Data.Either.Either GHC.Types.Int GHC.Base.String) ->
    case x_aur of _ [Occ=Dead] {
      Data.Either.Left int_aus ->
        Data.Either.Left
          @ GHC.Base.String
          @ GHC.Base.String
          (GHC.Show.$fShowInt_$cshow int_aus);
      Data.Either.Right str_aCG ->
        Data.Either.Right @ GHC.Base.String @ GHC.Base.String str_aCG
    }

There would be less allocations and probably perform better if we just coerced x into the new type. Because the coercion is common code, this also means that if hypothetically some other sum type which had 15 constructors, and only 3 had subtle type changes, 12 of the case branches could be CSE'd into the single coerce greatly reducing code generated and also hinting the inliner better.

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Version	7.8.2
Type	FeatureRequest
TypeOfFailure	OtherFailure
Priority	normal
Resolution	Unresolved
Component	Compiler
Test case
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