6.12.2. Let-generalisation

MonoLocalBinds
Since:6.12.1

Infer less polymorphic types for local bindings by default.

An ML-style language usually generalises the type of any let-bound or where-bound variable, so that it is as polymorphic as possible. With the extension MonoLocalBinds GHC implements a slightly more conservative policy, for reasons descibed in Section 4.2 of `”OutsideIn(X): Modular type inference with local assumptions”<https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/outsideinx-modular-type-inference-with-local-assumptions/>`__, and a related blog post.

The extension MonoLocalBinds is implied by TypeFamilies and GADTs. You can switch it off again with NoMonoLocalBinds but type inference becomes less predictable if you do so. (Read the paper!)

To a first approximation, with MonoLocalBinds top-level bindings are generalised, but local (i.e. nested) bindings are not. The idea is that, at top level, the type environment has no free type variables, and so the difficulties described in these papers do not arise. But GHC implements a slightly more complicated rule, for two reasons:

  • The Monomorphism Restriction can cause even top-level bindings not to be generalised, and hence even the top-level type environment can have free type variables.
  • For stylistic reasons, programmers sometimes write local bindings that make no use of local variables, so the binding could equally well be top-level. It seems reasonable to generalise these.

So here are the exact rules used by MonoLocalBinds. With MonoLocalBinds, a binding group will be generalised if and only if

  • Each of its free variables (excluding the variables bound by the group itself) is closed (see next bullet), or
  • Any of its binders has a partial type signature (see Partial Type Signatures). Adding a partial type signature f :: _, (or, more generally, f :: _ => _) provides a per-binding way to ask GHC to perform let-generalisation, even though MonoLocalBinds is on.

A variable f is called closed if and only if

  • The variable f is imported from another module, or
  • The variable f is let-bound, and one of the following holds: * f has an explicit, complete (i.e. not partial) type signature that has no free type variables, or * its binding group is generalised over all its free type variables, so that f‘s type has no free type variables.

The key idea is that: if a variable is closed, then its type definitely has no free type variables.

Note that: * A signature like f :: a -> a is equivalent to f :: forall a. a -> a, assuming a is not in scope. Hence f is closed, since it has a complete type signature with no free variables.

  • Even if the binding is generalised, it may not be generalised over all its free type variables, either because it mentions locally-bound variables, or because of the monomorphism restriction (Haskell Report, Section 4.5.5)

Example 1

f1 x = x+1
f2 y = f1 (y*2)

f1 has free variable (+), but it is imported and hence closd. So f1‘s binding is generalised. As a result, its type f1 :: forall a. Num a => a -> a has no free type variables, so f1 is closed. Hence f2‘s binding is generalised (since its free variables, f1 and (*) are both closed).

These comments apply whether the bindings for f1 and f2 are at top level or nested.

Example 2

f3 x = let g y = x+y in ....

The binding for g has a free variable x that is lambda-bound, and hence not closed. So g‘s binding is not generalised.