6.2.4. Applicative do-notation¶
-
ApplicativeDo
¶ Since: 8.0.1 Allow use of
Applicative
do
notation.
The language option ApplicativeDo
enables an alternative translation for
the do-notation, which uses the operators <$>
, <*>
, along with join
as far as possible. There are two main reasons for wanting to do this:
- We can use do-notation with types that are an instance of
Applicative
andFunctor
, but notMonad
- In some monads, using the applicative operators is more efficient than monadic bind. For example, it may enable more parallelism.
Applicative do-notation desugaring preserves the original semantics, provided
that the Applicative
instance satisfies <*> = ap
and pure = return
(these are true of all the common monadic types). Thus, you can normally turn on
ApplicativeDo
without fear of breaking your program. There is one pitfall
to watch out for; see Things to watch out for.
There are no syntactic changes with ApplicativeDo
. The only way it shows
up at the source level is that you can have a do
expression that doesn’t
require a Monad
constraint. For example, in GHCi:
Prelude> :set -XApplicativeDo
Prelude> :t \m -> do { x <- m; return (not x) }
\m -> do { x <- m; return (not x) }
:: Functor f => f Bool -> f Bool
This example only requires Functor
, because it is translated into (\x ->
not x) <$> m
. A more complex example requires Applicative
,
Prelude> :t \m -> do { x <- m 'a'; y <- m 'b'; return (x || y) }
\m -> do { x <- m 'a'; y <- m 'b'; return (x || y) }
:: Applicative f => (Char -> f Bool) -> f Bool
Here GHC has translated the expression into
(\x y -> x || y) <$> m 'a' <*> m 'b'
It is possible to see the actual translation by using -ddump-ds
, but be
warned, the output is quite verbose.
Note that if the expression can’t be translated into uses of <$>
, <*>
only, then it will incur a Monad
constraint as usual. This happens when
there is a dependency on a value produced by an earlier statement in the
do
-block:
Prelude> :t \m -> do { x <- m True; y <- m x; return (x || y) }
\m -> do { x <- m True; y <- m x; return (x || y) }
:: Monad m => (Bool -> m Bool) -> m Bool
Here, m x
depends on the value of x
produced by the first statement, so
the expression cannot be translated using <*>
.
In general, the rule for when a do
statement incurs a Monad
constraint
is as follows. If the do-expression has the following form:
do p1 <- E1; ...; pn <- En; return E
where none of the variables defined by p1...pn
are mentioned in E1...En
,
and p1...pn
are all variables or lazy patterns,
then the expression will only require Applicative
. Otherwise, the expression
will require Monad
. The block may return a pure expression E
depending
upon the results p1...pn
with either return
or pure
.
Note: the final statement must match one of these patterns exactly:
return E
return $ E
pure E
pure $ E
otherwise GHC cannot recognise it as a return
statement, and the
transformation to use <$>
that we saw above does not apply. In
particular, slight variations such as return . Just $ x
or let x
= e in return x
would not be recognised.
If the final statement is not of one of these forms, GHC falls back to
standard do
desugaring, and the expression will require a
Monad
constraint.
When the statements of a do
expression have dependencies between
them, and ApplicativeDo
cannot infer an Applicative
type, it
uses a heuristic algorithm to try to use <*>
as much as possible.
This algorithm usually finds the best solution, but in rare complex
cases it might miss an opportunity. There is an algorithm that finds
the optimal solution, provided as an option:
-
-foptimal-applicative-do
¶ Since: 8.0.1 Enables an alternative algorithm for choosing where to use
<*>
in conjunction with theApplicativeDo
language extension. This algorithm always finds the optimal solution, but it is expensive:O(n^3)
, so this option can lead to long compile times when there are very largedo
expressions (over 100 statements). The defaultApplicativeDo
algorithm isO(n^2)
.
6.2.4.1. Strict patterns¶
A strict pattern match in a bind statement prevents
ApplicativeDo
from transforming that statement to use
Applicative
. This is because the transformation would change the
semantics by making the expression lazier.
For example, this code will require a Monad
constraint:
> :t \m -> do { (x:xs) <- m; return x }
\m -> do { (x:xs) <- m; return x } :: Monad m => m [b] -> m b
but making the pattern match lazy allows it to have a Functor
constraint:
> :t \m -> do { ~(x:xs) <- m; return x }
\m -> do { ~(x:xs) <- m; return x } :: Functor f => f [b] -> f b
A “strict pattern match” is any pattern match that can fail. For
example, ()
, (x:xs)
, !z
, and C x
are strict patterns,
but x
and ~(1,2)
are not. For the purposes of
ApplicativeDo
, a pattern match against a newtype
constructor
is considered strict.
When there’s a strict pattern match in a sequence of statements,
ApplicativeDo
places a >>=
between that statement and the one
that follows it. The sequence may be transformed to use <*>
elsewhere, but the strict pattern match and the following statement
will always be connected with >>=
, to retain the same strictness
semantics as the standard do-notation. If you don’t want this, simply
put a ~
on the pattern match to make it lazy.
6.2.4.2. Things to watch out for¶
Your code should just work as before when ApplicativeDo
is enabled,
provided you use conventional Applicative
instances. However, if you define
a Functor
or Applicative
instance using do-notation, then it will likely
get turned into an infinite loop by GHC. For example, if you do this:
instance Functor MyType where
fmap f m = do x <- m; return (f x)
Then applicative desugaring will turn it into
instance Functor MyType where
fmap f m = fmap (\x -> f x) m
And the program will loop at runtime. Similarly, an Applicative
instance
like this
instance Applicative MyType where
pure = return
x <*> y = do f <- x; a <- y; return (f a)
will result in an infinite loop when <*>
is called.
Just as you wouldn’t define a Monad
instance using the do-notation, you
shouldn’t define Functor
or Applicative
instance using do-notation (when
using ApplicativeDo
) either. The correct way to define these instances in
terms of Monad
is to use the Monad
operations directly, e.g.
instance Functor MyType where
fmap f m = m >>= return . f
instance Applicative MyType where
pure = return
(<*>) = ap