Polysemy.ConstraintAbsorber

This function can be used to locally introduce typeclass instances for Sem. See Polysemy.ConstraintAbsorber.MonadState for an example of how to use it.

This is the type of entailment.

a :- b is read as a "entails" b.

With this we can actually build a category for Constraint resolution.

e.g.

Because Eq a is a superclass of Ord a, we can show that Ord a entails Eq a.

Because instance Ord a => Ord [a] exists, we can show that Ord a entails Ord [a] as well.

This relationship is captured in the :- entailment type here.

Since p :- p and entailment composes, :- forms the arrows of a Category of constraints. However, Category only became sufficiently general to support this instance in GHC 7.8, so prior to 7.8 this instance is unavailable.

But due to the coherence of instance resolution in Haskell, this Category has some very interesting properties. Notably, in the absence of IncoherentInstances, this category is "thin", which is to say that between any two objects (constraints) there is at most one distinguishable arrow.

This means that for instance, even though there are two ways to derive Ord a :- Eq [a], the answers from these two paths _must_ by construction be equal. This is a property that Haskell offers that is pretty much unique in the space of languages with things they call "type classes".

What are the two ways?

Well, we can go from Ord a :- Eq a via the superclass relationship, and then from Eq a :- Eq [a] via the instance, or we can go from Ord a :- Ord [a] via the instance then from Ord [a] :- Eq [a] through the superclass relationship and this diagram by definition must "commute".

Diagrammatically,

                   Ord a
               ins /     \ cls
                  v       v
            Ord [a]     Eq a
               cls \     / ins
                    v   v
                   Eq [a]

This safety net ensures that pretty much anything you can write with this library is sensible and can't break any assumptions on the behalf of library authors.

Values of type Dict p capture a dictionary for a constraint of type p.

e.g.

Dict :: Dict (Eq Int)

captures a dictionary that proves we have an:

instance Eq Int

Pattern matching on the Dict constructor will bring this instance into scope.

Recover a value inside a reify context, given a proxy for its reified type.

Proxy is a type that holds no data, but has a phantom parameter of arbitrary type (or even kind). Its use is to provide type information, even though there is no value available of that type (or it may be too costly to create one).

Historically, Proxy :: Proxy a is a safer alternative to the undefined :: a idiom.

>>> Proxy :: Proxy (Void, Int -> Int)Proxy

Proxy can even hold types of higher kinds,

>>> Proxy :: Proxy EitherProxy

>>> Proxy :: Proxy FunctorProxy

>>> Proxy :: Proxy complicatedStructureProxy