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This very large commit adds impredicativity to GHC, plus
numerous other small things.
  
*** WARNING: I have compiled all the libraries, and
***	     a stage-2 compiler, and everything seems
***	     fine.  But don't grab this patch if you 
***	     can't tolerate a hiccup if something is
***	     broken.
  
The big picture is this:

a) GHC handles impredicative polymorphism, as described in the
   "Boxy types: type inference for higher-rank types and
   impredicativity" paper

b) GHC handles GADTs in the new simplified (and very sligtly less
   epxrssive) way described in the
   "Simple unification-based type inference for GADTs" paper

  
But there are lots of smaller changes, and since it was pre-Darcs
they are not individually recorded.
  
Some things to watch out for:
  
c)   The story on lexically-scoped type variables has changed, as per
     my email.  I append the story below for completeness, but I 
     am still not happy with it, and it may change again.  In particular,
     the new story does not allow a pattern-bound scoped type variable
     to be wobbly, so (\(x::[a]) -> ...) is usually rejected.  This is
     more restrictive than before, and we might loosen up again.
  
d)   A consequence of adding impredicativity is that GHC is a bit less
     gung ho about converting automatically between
  	(ty1 -> forall a. ty2)    and    (forall a. ty1 -> ty2)
     In particular, you may need to eta-expand some functions to make
     typechecking work again.
   
     Furthermore, functions are now invariant in their argument types,
     rather than being contravariant.  Again, the main consequence is
     that you may occasionally need to eta-expand function arguments when
     using higher-rank polymorphism.
  

Please test, and let me know of any hiccups


Scoped type variables in GHC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
	January 2006

0) Terminology.
   
   A *pattern binding* is of the form
	pat = rhs

   A *function binding* is of the form
	f pat1 .. patn = rhs

   A binding of the formm
	var = rhs
   is treated as a (degenerate) *function binding*.


   A *declaration type signature* is a separate type signature for a
   let-bound or where-bound variable:
	f :: Int -> Int

   A *pattern type signature* is a signature in a pattern: 
	\(x::a) -> x
	f (x::a) = x

   A *result type signature* is a signature on the result of a
   function definition:
	f :: forall a. [a] -> a
	head (x:xs) :: a = x

   The form
	x :: a = rhs
   is treated as a (degnerate) function binding with a result
   type signature, not as a pattern binding.

1) The main invariants:

     A) A lexically-scoped type variable always names a (rigid)
 	type variable (not an arbitrary type).  THIS IS A CHANGE.
        Previously, a scoped type variable named an arbitrary *type*.

     B) A type signature always describes a rigid type (since
	its free (scoped) type variables name rigid type variables).
	This is also a change, a consequence of (A).

     C) Distinct lexically-scoped type variables name distinct
	rigid type variables.  This choice is open; 

2) Scoping

2(a) If a declaration type signature has an explicit forall, those type
   variables are brought into scope in the right hand side of the 
   corresponding binding (plus, for function bindings, the patterns on
   the LHS).  
	f :: forall a. a -> [a]
	f (x::a) = [x :: a, x]
   Both occurences of 'a' in the second line are bound by 
   the 'forall a' in the first line

   A declaration type signature *without* an explicit top-level forall
   is implicitly quantified over all the type variables that are
   mentioned in the type but not already in scope.  GHC's current
   rule is that this implicit quantification does *not* bring into scope
   any new scoped type variables.
	f :: a -> a
	f x = ...('a' is not in scope here)...
   This gives compatibility with Haskell 98

2(b) A pattern type signature implicitly brings into scope any type
   variables mentioned in the type that are not already into scope.
   These are called *pattern-bound type variables*.
	g :: a -> a -> [a]
	g (x::a) (y::a) = [y :: a, x]
   The pattern type signature (x::a) brings 'a' into scope.
   The 'a' in the pattern (y::a) is bound, as is the occurrence on 
   the RHS.  

   A pattern type siganture is the only way you can bring existentials 
   into scope.
	data T where
	  MkT :: forall a. a -> (a->Int) -> T

	f x = case x of
		MkT (x::a) f -> f (x::a)

2a) QUESTION
	class C a where
	  op :: forall b. b->a->a

	instance C (T p q) where
	  op = <rhs>
    Clearly p,q are in scope in <rhs>, but is 'b'?  Not at the moment.
    Nor can you add a type signature for op in the instance decl.
    You'd have to say this:
	instance C (T p q) where
	  op = let op' :: forall b. ...
	           op' = <rhs>
	       in op'

3) A pattern-bound type variable is allowed only if the pattern's
   expected type is rigid.  Otherwise we don't know exactly *which*
   skolem the scoped type variable should be bound to, and that means
   we can't do GADT refinement.  This is invariant (A), and it is a 
   big change from the current situation.

	f (x::a) = x	-- NO; pattern type is wobbly
	
	g1 :: b -> b
	g1 (x::b) = x	-- YES, because the pattern type is rigid

	g2 :: b -> b
	g2 (x::c) = x	-- YES, same reason

	h :: forall b. b -> b
	h (x::b) = x	-- YES, but the inner b is bound

	k :: forall b. b -> b
	k (x::c) = x	-- NO, it can't be both b and c

3a) You cannot give different names for the same type variable in the same scope
    (Invariant (C)):

	f1 :: p -> p -> p		-- NO; because 'a' and 'b' would be
	f1 (x::a) (y::b) = (x::a)	--     bound to the same type variable

	f2 :: p -> p -> p		-- OK; 'a' is bound to the type variable
	f2 (x::a) (y::a) = (x::a)	--     over which f2 is quantified
					-- NB: 'p' is not lexically scoped

	f3 :: forall p. p -> p -> p	-- NO: 'p' is now scoped, and is bound to
	f3 (x::a) (y::a) = (x::a)	--     to the same type varialble as 'a'

	f4 :: forall p. p -> p -> p	-- OK: 'p' is now scoped, and its occurences
	f4 (x::p) (y::p) = (x::p)	--     in the patterns are bound by the forall


3b) You can give a different name to the same type variable in different
    disjoint scopes, just as you can (if you want) give diferent names to 
    the same value parameter

	g :: a -> Bool -> Maybe a
	g (x::p) True  = Just x  :: Maybe p
	g (y::q) False = Nothing :: Maybe q

3c) Scoped type variables respect alpha renaming. For example, 
    function f2 from (3a) above could also be written:
	f2' :: p -> p -> p
	f2' (x::b) (y::b) = x::b
   where the scoped type variable is called 'b' instead of 'a'.


4) Result type signatures obey the same rules as pattern types signatures.
   In particular, they can bind a type variable only if the result type is rigid

	f x :: a = x	-- NO

	g :: b -> b
	g x :: b = x	-- YES; binds b in rhs

5) A *pattern type signature* in a *pattern binding* cannot bind a 
   scoped type variable

	(x::a, y) = ...		-- Legal only if 'a' is already in scope

   Reason: in type checking, the "expected type" of the LHS pattern is
   always wobbly, so we can't bind a rigid type variable.  (The exception
   would be for an existential type variable, but existentials are not
   allowed in pattern bindings either.)
 
   Even this is illegal
	f :: forall a. a -> a
	f x = let ((y::b)::a, z) = ... 
	      in 
   Here it looks as if 'b' might get a rigid binding; but you can't bind
   it to the same skolem as a.

6) Explicitly-forall'd type variables in the *declaration type signature(s)*
   for a *pattern binding* do not scope AT ALL.

	x :: forall a. a->a	  -- NO; the forall a does 
	Just (x::a->a) = Just id  --     not scope at all

	y :: forall a. a->a
	Just y = Just (id :: a->a)  -- NO; same reason

   THIS IS A CHANGE, but one I bet that very few people will notice.
   Here's why:

	strange :: forall b. (b->b,b->b)
	strange = (id,id)

	x1 :: forall a. a->a
	y1 :: forall b. b->b
	(x1,y1) = strange

    This is legal Haskell 98 (modulo the forall). If both 'a' and 'b'
    both scoped over the RHS, they'd get unified and so cannot stand
    for distinct type variables. One could *imagine* allowing this:
   
	x2 :: forall a. a->a
	y2 :: forall a. a->a
	(x2,y2) = strange

    using the very same type variable 'a' in both signatures, so that
    a single 'a' scopes over the RHS.  That seems defensible, but odd,
    because though there are two type signatures, they introduce just
    *one* scoped type variable, a.

7) Possible extension.  We might consider allowing
	\(x :: [ _ ]) -> <expr>
    where "_" is a wild card, to mean "x has type list of something", without
    naming the something.

Along the lines of the clean/dirty arrays and IORefs implemented
recently, now threads are marked clean or dirty depending on whether
they need to be scanned during a minor GC or not.  This should speed
up GC when there are lots of threads, especially if most of them are
idle.

Moved the utility functions out of hschooks, avoided
linking the GHC library with hschooks.o and
added a couple of symbols to the linkers export list.

For one thing this is the right thing to do anyway, it's what other tools do.
Secondly it allows haddock to produce accurate source code links.

merged from CVS, because Tailor isn't merging the libraries subdir

omit the Main module from libHSghc.a

exposed-modules should include Config

tryPutMVarzh_fast: make it work in the non-full case.

Merge to STABLE.

Check for constructors in type signatures

Expunge all mention of CCallable/CReturnable

Ghci wibble; weaken assert

Remove dead code

Remove dead panic

Remove dead error

(darcs patch from Ian Lynagh)

Implement :main (see ticket #662)

Patch from Volker Stolz, minor mods by me

When matching commands, we now look for (a) an exact match, and (b)
the first prefix match we find in the list.  This is so that :module
can still be abbreviated by :m, to avoid surprise.

Docs still to do.

add a couple of missing symbols

- fix a mixup in Capability.c regarding signals: signals_pending() is not
  used in THREADED_RTS

- some cleanups and warning removal while I'm here

Fix build on 5.04.x again

Improve the GC behaviour of IORefs (see Ticket #650).

This is a small change to the way IORefs interact with the GC, which
should improve GC performance for programs with plenty of IORefs.

Previously we had a single closure type for mutable variables,
MUT_VAR.  Mutable variables were *always* on the mutable list in older
generations, and always traversed on every GC.

Now, we have two closure types: MUT_VAR_CLEAN and MUT_VAR_DIRTY.  The
latter is on the mutable list, but the former is not.  (NB. this
differs from MUT_ARR_PTRS_CLEAN and MUT_ARR_PTRS_DIRTY, both of which
are on the mutable list).  writeMutVar# now implements a write
barrier, by calling dirty_MUT_VAR() in the runtime, that does the
necessary modification of MUT_VAR_CLEAN into MUT_VAR_DIRY, and adding
to the mutable list if necessary.

This results in some pretty dramatic speedups for GHC itself.  I've
just measureed a 30% overall speedup compiling a 31-module program
(anna) with the default heap settings :-D

Improve the GC behaviour of IOArrays/STArrays

See Ticket #650

This is a small change to the way mutable arrays interact with the GC,
that can have a dramatic effect on performance, and make tricks with
unsafeThaw/unsafeFreeze redundant.  Data.HashTable should be faster
now (I haven't measured it yet).

We now have two mutable array closure types, MUT_ARR_PTRS_CLEAN and
MUT_ARR_PTRS_DIRTY.  Both are on the mutable list if the array is in
an old generation.  writeArray# sets the type to MUT_ARR_PTRS_DIRTY.
The garbage collector can set the type to MUT_ARR_PTRS_CLEAN if it
finds that no element of the array points into a younger generation
(discovering this required a small addition to evacuate(), but rough
tests indicate that it doesn't measurably affect performance).

NOTE: none of this affects unboxed arrays (IOUArray/STUArray), only
boxed arrays (IOArray/STArray).

We could go further and extend the DIRTY bit to be per-block rather
than for the whole array, but for now this is an easy improvement.

statDescribeGens: count large blocks in the "live" figure

take into account unscavenged copied words in +RTS -t stats.

Linux/PPC64: remove some dead code that accidentally slipped in.

MERGE TO STABLE

Darwin/PPC:
Make StgRunIsImplementedInAssembler non-static; gcc has recently acquired
a habit of dead-stripping it.

MERGE TO STABLE

Default signal handlers weren't being installed; amazing that this has
been broken ever since I rearranged the signal handling code.

- get from the same repo as the main GHC repo, if that was a local filesystem
- allow darcs whatsnew
- use --repodir if possible