7.9. Generalised derived instances for newtypes

7.9.1. Generalising the deriving clause

GHC now permits such instances to be derived instead, so one can write

newtype Dollars = Dollars Int deriving (Eq,Show,Num)

and the implementation uses the same Num dictionary for Dollars as for Int. Notionally, the compiler derives an instance declaration of the form

instance Num Int => Num Dollars

which just adds or removes the newtype constructor according to the type.

We can also derive instances of constructor classes in a similar way. For example, suppose we have implemented state and failure monad transformers, such that

instance Monad m => Monad (State s m) instance Monad m => Monad (Failure m)

In Haskell 98, we can define a parsing monad by

type Parser tok m a = State [tok] (Failure m) a

which is automatically a monad thanks to the instance declarations above. With the extension, we can make the parser type abstract, without needing to write an instance of class Monad, via

newtype Parser tok m a = Parser (State [tok] (Failure m) a) deriving Monad

In this case the derived instance declaration is of the form

instance Monad (State [tok] (Failure m)) => Monad (Parser tok m)

Notice that, since Monad is a constructor class, the instance is a partial application of the new type, not the entire left hand side. We can imagine that the type declaration is ``eta-converted'' to generate the context of the instance declaration.

We can even derive instances of multi-parameter classes, provided the newtype is the last class parameter. In this case, a ``partial application'' of the class appears in the deriving clause. For example, given the class

class StateMonad s m | m -> s where ... instance Monad m => StateMonad s (State s m) where ...

then we can derive an instance of StateMonad for Parsers by

newtype Parser tok m a = Parser (State [tok] (Failure m) a) deriving (Monad, StateMonad [tok])

The derived instance is obtained by completing the application of the class to the new type:

instance StateMonad [tok] (State [tok] (Failure m)) => StateMonad [tok] (Parser tok m)

As a result of this extension, all derived instances in newtype declarations are treated uniformly (and implemented just by reusing the dictionary for the representation type), except Show and Read, which really behave differently for the newtype and its representation.

7.9.2. A more precise specification

Derived instance declarations are constructed as follows. Consider the declaration (after expansion of any type synonyms)

newtype T v1...vn = T' (S t1...tk vk+1...vn) deriving (c1...cm)

where S is a type constructor, t1...tk are types, vk+1...vn are type variables which do not occur in any of the ti, and the ci are partial applications of classes of the form C t1'...tj'. The derived instance declarations are, for each ci,

instance ci (S t1...tk vk+1...v) => ci (T v1...vp)

where p is chosen so that T v1...vp is of the right kind for the last parameter of class Ci.

As an example which does not work, consider

newtype NonMonad m s = NonMonad (State s m s) deriving Monad

Here we cannot derive the instance

instance Monad (State s m) => Monad (NonMonad m)

because the type variable s occurs in State s m, and so cannot be "eta-converted" away. It is a good thing that this deriving clause is rejected, because NonMonad m is not, in fact, a monad --- for the same reason. Try defining >>= with the correct type: you won't be able to.

Notice also that the order of class parameters becomes important, since we can only derive instances for the last one. If the StateMonad class above were instead defined as

class StateMonad m s | m -> s where ...

then we would not have been able to derive an instance for the Parser type above. We hypothesise that multi-parameter classes usually have one "main" parameter for which deriving new instances is most interesting.