rebindable if-then-else syntax
This is a request to make the syntactic if-then-else construct of Haskell rebindable by programmers to allow their own definition of the semantics of the construct.
My main motivation for wanting this feature is that I use Haskell as a host for embedded languages, and these often come with their own control flows. So I find myself wanting to write my own definition of the if-then-else construct that works on terms of some other type, e.g. tests on values of type Exp Bool instead of Bool, and at the same time make sure that the user doesn't use the built-in if-then-else. Sure, I can (and do) call my own version if_, ifElse or something else along those lines, but it's sure to be a constant source of programmer errors, writing if-then-else instead of if_ by habit.
Making the if-then-else construct rebindable in the same way the do notation is would solve the problem quite nicely, however there are some problems involved with doing so. The do notation is syntactic sugar for >>= and company so it's easy to translate it into non-prelude-qualified versions of functions with those names. This is not the case for if-then-else. But it could be, the prelude could define a function if_ (or whatever) that the if-then-else construct is made to be sugar for, and thus also amenable to rebinding by not prelude-qualifying.
There are problems with this approach however. First of all, programs that import names from the Prelude explicitly would no longer be able to use if-then-else unless they also added 'cond' to that input list (or redefined it of course). This shouldn't really be a problem, since the rebindable syntax is turned on by adding some flag anyway, and if you add that flag you know you're no longer H98. Still, it's going to break a lot of existing programs. The second problem is that it would require the addition of the cond function to the Prelude. This will probably not break too many existing programs, but still it is a more serious problem since it will have effect even without any flags to GHC. Or is it possible to govern the contents of the Prelude based on flags?
Also, is cond the best name for the suggested function? If we don't expect anyone to really use it without the sugar, we could name it whatever weird thing so as to break as few existing programs as possible. It would make explicit import a bit more akward though. However, I suspect that if this function did exist in the Prelude, people would start using it a lot.
Trac metadata
Trac field | Value |
---|---|
Version | 6.4.2 |
Type | FeatureRequest |
TypeOfFailure | OtherFailure |
Priority | normal |
Resolution | Unresolved |
Component | Compiler |
Test case | |
Differential revisions | |
BlockedBy | |
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Blocking | |
CC | |
Operating system | Unknown |
Architecture | Unknown |