Herbert Valerio Riedel authored 6 years ago and Ben Gamari committed 6 years ago

As per https://prime.haskell.org/wiki/Libraries/Proposals/MonadFail



Coauthored-by: Ben Gamari <ben@well-typed.com>

We have wanted quantified constraints for ages and, as I hoped,
they proved remarkably simple to implement.   All the machinery was
already in place.

The main ticket is Trac #2893, but also relevant are
  #5927
  #8516
  #9123 (especially!  higher kinded roles)
  #14070
  #14317

The wiki page is
  https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/QuantifiedConstraints
which in turn contains a link to the GHC Proposal where the change
is specified.

Here is the relevant Note:

Note [Quantified constraints]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The -XQuantifiedConstraints extension allows type-class contexts like
this:

  data Rose f x = Rose x (f (Rose f x))

  instance (Eq a, forall b. Eq b => Eq (f b))
        => Eq (Rose f a)  where
    (Rose x1 rs1) == (Rose x2 rs2) = x1==x2 && rs1 >= rs2

Note the (forall b. Eq b => Eq (f b)) in the instance contexts.
This quantified constraint is needed to solve the
 [W] (Eq (f (Rose f x)))
constraint which arises form the (==) definition.

Here are the moving parts
  * Language extension {-# LANGUAGE QuantifiedConstraints #-}
    and add it to ghc-boot-th:GHC.LanguageExtensions.Type.Extension

  * A new form of evidence, EvDFun, that is used to discharge
    such wanted constraints

  * checkValidType gets some changes to accept forall-constraints
    only in the right places.

  * Type.PredTree gets a new constructor ForAllPred, and
    and classifyPredType analyses a PredType to decompose
    the new forall-constraints

  * Define a type TcRnTypes.QCInst, which holds a given
    quantified constraint in the inert set

  * TcSMonad.InertCans gets an extra field, inert_insts :: [QCInst],
    which holds all the Given forall-constraints.  In effect,
    such Given constraints are like local instance decls.

  * When trying to solve a class constraint, via
    TcInteract.matchInstEnv, use the InstEnv from inert_insts
    so that we include the local Given forall-constraints
    in the lookup.  (See TcSMonad.getInstEnvs.)

  * topReactionsStage calls doTopReactOther for CIrredCan and
    CTyEqCan, so they can try to react with any given
    quantified constraints (TcInteract.matchLocalInst)

  * TcCanonical.canForAll deals with solving a
    forall-constraint.  See
       Note [Solving a Wanted forall-constraint]
       Note [Solving a Wanted forall-constraint]

  * We augment the kick-out code to kick out an inert
    forall constraint if it can be rewritten by a new
    type equality; see TcSMonad.kick_out_rewritable

Some other related refactoring
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Move SCC on evidence bindings to post-desugaring, which fixed
  #14735, and is generally nicer anyway because we can use
  existing CoreSyn free-var functions.  (Quantified constraints
  made the free-vars of an ev-term a bit more complicated.)

* In LookupInstResult, replace GenInst with OneInst and NotSure,
  using the latter for multiple matches and/or one or more
  unifiers

And rename the wrongly named rebindable/T5821 to T5908 (Trac #5908)

The idea was promted by Trac #9939, but it was Christmas, so I did
some recreational programming that went much further.

The idea is to warn when a constraint in a user-supplied context is
redundant.  Everything is described in detail in
  Note [Tracking redundant constraints]
in TcSimplify.

Main changes:

 * The new ic_status field in an implication, of type ImplicStatus.
   It replaces ic_insol, and includes information about redundant
   constraints.

 * New function TcSimplify.setImplicationStatus sets the ic_status.

 * TcSigInfo has sig_report_redundant field to say whenther a
   redundant constraint should be reported; and similarly
   the FunSigCtxt constructor of UserTypeCtxt

 * EvBinds has a field eb_is_given, to record whether it is a given
   or wanted binding. Some consequential chagnes to creating an evidence
   binding (so that we record whether it is given or wanted).

 * AbsBinds field abs_ev_binds is now a *list* of TcEvBiinds;
   see Note [Typechecking plan for instance declarations] in
   TcInstDcls

 * Some significant changes to the type checking of instance
   declarations; Note [Typechecking plan for instance declarations]
   in TcInstDcls.

 * I found that TcErrors.relevantBindings was failing to zonk the
   origin of the constraint it was looking at, and hence failing to
   find some relevant bindings.  Easy to fix, and orthogonal to
   everything else, but hard to disentangle.

Some minor refactorig:

 * TcMType.newSimpleWanteds moves to Inst, renamed as newWanteds

 * TcClassDcl and TcInstDcls now have their own code for typechecking
   a method body, rather than sharing a single function. The shared
   function (ws TcClassDcl.tcInstanceMethodBody) didn't have much code
   and the differences were growing confusing.

 * Add new function TcRnMonad.pushLevelAndCaptureConstraints, and
   use it

 * Add new function Bag.catBagMaybes, and use it in TcSimplify