The language extension -XUnicodeSyntax enables Unicode characters to be used to stand for certain ASCII character sequences. The following alternatives are provided:

The language extension -XMagicHash allows "#" as a postfix modifier to identifiers. Thus, "x#" is a valid variable, and "T#" is a valid type constructor or data constructor.

The hash sign does not change semantics at all. We tend to use variable names ending in "#" for unboxed values or types (e.g. Int#), but there is no requirement to do so; they are just plain ordinary variables. Nor does the -XMagicHash extension bring anything into scope. For example, to bring Int# into scope you must import GHC.Prim (see Section 7.2, “Unboxed types and primitive operations”); the -XMagicHash extension then allows you to refer to the Int# that is now in scope.

The -XMagicHash also enables some new forms of literals (see Section 7.2.1, “Unboxed types ”):

GHC supports a small extension to the syntax of module names: a module name is allowed to contain a dot ‘.’. This is also known as the “hierarchical module namespace” extension, because it extends the normally flat Haskell module namespace into a more flexible hierarchy of modules.

This extension has very little impact on the language itself; modules names are always fully qualified, so you can just think of the fully qualified module name as “the module name”. In particular, this means that the full module name must be given after the module keyword at the beginning of the module; for example, the module A.B.C must begin

module A.B.C

It is a common strategy to use the as keyword to save some typing when using qualified names with hierarchical modules. For example:

import qualified Control.Monad.ST.Strict as ST

For details on how GHC searches for source and interface files in the presence of hierarchical modules, see Section 4.7.3, “The search path”.

GHC comes with a large collection of libraries arranged hierarchically; see the accompanying library documentation. More libraries to install are available from HackageDB.

The discussion that follows is an abbreviated version of Simon Peyton Jones's original proposal. (Note that the proposal was written before pattern guards were implemented, so refers to them as unimplemented.)

Suppose we have an abstract data type of finite maps, with a lookup operation:

lookup :: FiniteMap -> Int -> Maybe Int

The lookup returns Nothing if the supplied key is not in the domain of the mapping, and (Just v) otherwise, where v is the value that the key maps to. Now consider the following definition:

clunky env var1 var2 | ok1 && ok2 = val1 + val2
| otherwise  = var1 + var2
where
  m1 = lookup env var1
  m2 = lookup env var2
  ok1 = maybeToBool m1
  ok2 = maybeToBool m2
  val1 = expectJust m1
  val2 = expectJust m2

The auxiliary functions are

maybeToBool :: Maybe a -> Bool
maybeToBool (Just x) = True
maybeToBool Nothing  = False

expectJust :: Maybe a -> a
expectJust (Just x) = x
expectJust Nothing  = error "Unexpected Nothing"

What is clunky doing? The guard ok1 && ok2 checks that both lookups succeed, using maybeToBool to convert the Maybe types to booleans. The (lazily evaluated) expectJust calls extract the values from the results of the lookups, and binds the returned values to val1 and val2 respectively. If either lookup fails, then clunky takes the otherwise case and returns the sum of its arguments.

This is certainly legal Haskell, but it is a tremendously verbose and un-obvious way to achieve the desired effect. Arguably, a more direct way to write clunky would be to use case expressions:

clunky env var1 var2 = case lookup env var1 of
  Nothing -> fail
  Just val1 -> case lookup env var2 of
    Nothing -> fail
    Just val2 -> val1 + val2
where
  fail = var1 + var2

This is a bit shorter, but hardly better. Of course, we can rewrite any set of pattern-matching, guarded equations as case expressions; that is precisely what the compiler does when compiling equations! The reason that Haskell provides guarded equations is because they allow us to write down the cases we want to consider, one at a time, independently of each other. This structure is hidden in the case version. Two of the right-hand sides are really the same (fail), and the whole expression tends to become more and more indented.

Here is how I would write clunky:

clunky env var1 var2
  | Just val1 <- lookup env var1
  , Just val2 <- lookup env var2
  = val1 + val2
...other equations for clunky...

The semantics should be clear enough. The qualifiers are matched in order. For a <- qualifier, which I call a pattern guard, the right hand side is evaluated and matched against the pattern on the left. If the match fails then the whole guard fails and the next equation is tried. If it succeeds, then the appropriate binding takes place, and the next qualifier is matched, in the augmented environment. Unlike list comprehensions, however, the type of the expression to the right of the <- is the same as the type of the pattern to its left. The bindings introduced by pattern guards scope over all the remaining guard qualifiers, and over the right hand side of the equation.

Just as with list comprehensions, boolean expressions can be freely mixed with among the pattern guards. For example:

f x | [y] <- x
    , y > 3
    , Just z <- h y
    = ...

Haskell's current guards therefore emerge as a special case, in which the qualifier list has just one element, a boolean expression.

View patterns are enabled by the flag -XViewPatterns. More information and examples of view patterns can be found on the Wiki page.

View patterns are somewhat like pattern guards that can be nested inside of other patterns. They are a convenient way of pattern-matching against values of abstract types. For example, in a programming language implementation, we might represent the syntax of the types of the language as follows:

type Typ

data TypView = Unit
             | Arrow Typ Typ

view :: Type -> TypeView

-- additional operations for constructing Typ's ...

The representation of Typ is held abstract, permitting implementations to use a fancy representation (e.g., hash-consing to manage sharing). Without view patterns, using this signature a little inconvenient:

size :: Typ -> Integer
size t = case view t of
  Unit -> 1
  Arrow t1 t2 -> size t1 + size t2

It is necessary to iterate the case, rather than using an equational function definition. And the situation is even worse when the matching against t is buried deep inside another pattern.

View patterns permit calling the view function inside the pattern and matching against the result:

size (view -> Unit) = 1
size (view -> Arrow t1 t2) = size t1 + size t2

That is, we add a new form of pattern, written expression -> pattern that means "apply the expression to whatever we're trying to match against, and then match the result of that application against the pattern". The expression can be any Haskell expression of function type, and view patterns can be used wherever patterns are used.

The semantics of a pattern ( exp -> pat ) are as follows:

n+k pattern support is enabled by default. To disable it, you can use the -XNoNPlusKPatterns flag.

The do-notation of Haskell 98 does not allow recursive bindings, that is, the variables bound in a do-expression are visible only in the textually following code block. Compare this to a let-expression, where bound variables are visible in the entire binding group. It turns out that several applications can benefit from recursive bindings in the do-notation. The -XDoRec flag provides the necessary syntactic support.

Here is a simple (albeit contrived) example:

{-# LANGUAGE DoRec #-}
justOnes = do { rec { xs <- Just (1:xs) }
              ; return (map negate xs) }

As you can guess justOnes will evaluate to Just [-1,-1,-1,....

The background and motivation for recursive do-notation is described in A recursive do for Haskell, by Levent Erkok, John Launchbury, Haskell Workshop 2002, pages: 29-37. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The theory behind monadic value recursion is explained further in Erkok's thesis Value Recursion in Monadic Computations. However, note that GHC uses a different syntax than the one described in these documents.

do { a <- getChar              do { a <- getChar
   ; let { r1 = f a r2	           ; rec { r1 <- f a r2
         ; r2 = g r1 }	                 ; r2 <- g r1 }
   ; return (r1 ++ r2) }          ; return (r1 ++ r2) }

Parallel list comprehensions are a natural extension to list comprehensions. List comprehensions can be thought of as a nice syntax for writing maps and filters. Parallel comprehensions extend this to include the zipWith family.

A parallel list comprehension has multiple independent branches of qualifier lists, each separated by a `|' symbol. For example, the following zips together two lists:

   [ (x, y) | x <- xs | y <- ys ]

The behavior of parallel list comprehensions follows that of zip, in that the resulting list will have the same length as the shortest branch.

We can define parallel list comprehensions by translation to regular comprehensions. Here's the basic idea:

Given a parallel comprehension of the form:

   [ e | p1 <- e11, p2 <- e12, ...
       | q1 <- e21, q2 <- e22, ...
       ...
   ]

This will be translated to:

   [ e | ((p1,p2), (q1,q2), ...) <- zipN [(p1,p2) | p1 <- e11, p2 <- e12, ...]
                                         [(q1,q2) | q1 <- e21, q2 <- e22, ...]
                                         ...
   ]

where `zipN' is the appropriate zip for the given number of branches.

Generalised list comprehensions are a further enhancement to the list comprehension syntactic sugar to allow operations such as sorting and grouping which are familiar from SQL. They are fully described in the paper Comprehensive comprehensions: comprehensions with "order by" and "group by", except that the syntax we use differs slightly from the paper.

The extension is enabled with the flag -XTransformListComp.

Here is an example:

employees = [ ("Simon", "MS", 80)
, ("Erik", "MS", 100)
, ("Phil", "Ed", 40)
, ("Gordon", "Ed", 45)
, ("Paul", "Yale", 60)]

output = [ (the dept, sum salary)
| (name, dept, salary) <- employees
, then group by dept
, then sortWith by (sum salary)
, then take 5 ]

In this example, the list output would take on the value:

[("Yale", 60), ("Ed", 85), ("MS", 180)]

There are three new keywords: group, by, and using. (The function sortWith is not a keyword; it is an ordinary function that is exported by GHC.Exts.)

There are five new forms of comprehension qualifier, all introduced by the (existing) keyword then:

Monad comprehensions generalise the list comprehension notation, including parallel comprehensions (Section 7.3.8, “Parallel List Comprehensions”) and transform comprehensions (Section 7.3.9, “Generalised (SQL-Like) List Comprehensions”) to work for any monad.

Monad comprehensions support:

All these features are enabled by default if the MonadComprehensions extension is enabled. The types and more detailed examples on how to use comprehensions are explained in the previous chapters Section 7.3.9, “Generalised (SQL-Like) List Comprehensions” and Section 7.3.8, “Parallel List Comprehensions”. In general you just have to replace the type [a] with the type Monad m => m a for monad comprehensions.

Note: Even though most of these examples are using the list monad, monad comprehensions work for any monad. The base package offers all necessary instances for lists, which make MonadComprehensions backward compatible to built-in, transform and parallel list comprehensions.

More formally, the desugaring is as follows. We write D[ e | Q] to mean the desugaring of the monad comprehension [ e | Q]:

Expressions: e
Declarations: d
Lists of qualifiers: Q,R,S

-- Basic forms
D[ e | ]               = return e
D[ e | p <- e, Q ]     = e >>= \p -> D[ e | Q ]
D[ e | e, Q ]          = guard e >> \p -> D[ e | Q ]
D[ e | let d, Q ]      = let d in D[ e | Q ]

-- Parallel comprehensions (iterate for multiple parallel branches)
D[ e | (Q | R), S ]    = mzip D[ Qv | Q ] D[ Rv | R ] >>= \(Qv,Rv) -> D[ e | S ]

-- Transform comprehensions
D[ e | Q then f, R ]                  = f D[ Qv | Q ] >>= \Qv -> D[ e | R ]

D[ e | Q then f by b, R ]             = f (\Qv -> b) D[ Qv | Q ] >>= \Qv -> D[ e | R ]

D[ e | Q then group using f, R ]      = f D[ Qv | Q ] >>= \ys ->
                                        case (fmap selQv1 ys, ..., fmap selQvn ys) of
                                 	     Qv -> D[ e | R ]

D[ e | Q then group by b, R ]         = D[ e | Q then group by b using mgroupWith, R ]

D[ e | Q then group by b using f, R ] = f (\Qv -> b) D[ Qv | Q ] >>= \ys ->
                                        case (fmap selQv1 ys, ..., fmap selQvn ys) of
                                           Qv -> D[ e | R ]

where  Qv is the tuple of variables bound by Q (and used subsequently)
       selQvi is a selector mapping Qv to the ith component of Qv

Operator     Standard binding       Expected type
--------------------------------------------------------------------
return       GHC.Base               t1 -> m t2
(>>=)        GHC.Base               m1 t1 -> (t2 -> m2 t3) -> m3 t3
(>>)         GHC.Base               m1 t1 -> m2 t2         -> m3 t3
guard        Control.Monad          t1 -> m t2
fmap         GHC.Base               forall a b. (a->b) -> n a -> n b
mgroupWith   Control.Monad.Group    forall a. (a -> t) -> m1 a -> m2 (n a)
mzip         Control.Monad.Zip      forall a b. m a -> m b -> m (a,b)

The comprehension should typecheck when its desugaring would typecheck.

Monad comprehensions support rebindable syntax (Section 7.3.11, “Rebindable syntax and the implicit Prelude import”). Without rebindable syntax, the operators from the "standard binding" module are used; with rebindable syntax, the operators are looked up in the current lexical scope. For example, parallel comprehensions will be typechecked and desugared using whatever "mzip" is in scope.

The rebindable operators must have the "Expected type" given in the table above. These types are surprisingly general. For example, you can use a bind operator with the type

(>>=) :: T x y a -> (a -> T y z b) -> T x z b

In the case of transform comprehensions, notice that the groups are parameterised over some arbitrary type n (provided it has an fmap, as well as the comprehension being over an arbitrary monad.

GHC normally imports Prelude.hi files for you. If you'd rather it didn't, then give it a -XNoImplicitPrelude option. The idea is that you can then import a Prelude of your own. (But don't call it Prelude; the Haskell module namespace is flat, and you must not conflict with any Prelude module.)

Suppose you are importing a Prelude of your own in order to define your own numeric class hierarchy. It completely defeats that purpose if the literal "1" means "Prelude.fromInteger 1", which is what the Haskell Report specifies. So the -XRebindableSyntax flag causes the following pieces of built-in syntax to refer to whatever is in scope, not the Prelude versions:

-XRebindableSyntax implies -XNoImplicitPrelude.

In all cases (apart from arrow notation), the static semantics should be that of the desugared form, even if that is a little unexpected. For example, the static semantics of the literal 368 is exactly that of fromInteger (368::Integer); it's fine for fromInteger to have any of the types:

fromInteger :: Integer -> Integer
fromInteger :: forall a. Foo a => Integer -> a
fromInteger :: Num a => a -> Integer
fromInteger :: Integer -> Bool -> Bool

Be warned: this is an experimental facility, with fewer checks than usual. Use -dcore-lint to typecheck the desugared program. If Core Lint is happy you should be all right.

The -XPostfixOperators flag enables a small extension to the syntax of left operator sections, which allows you to define postfix operators. The extension is this: the left section

  (e !)

is equivalent (from the point of view of both type checking and execution) to the expression

  ((!) e)

(for any expression e and operator (!). The strict Haskell 98 interpretation is that the section is equivalent to

  (\y -> (!) e y)

That is, the operator must be a function of two arguments. GHC allows it to take only one argument, and that in turn allows you to write the function postfix.

The extension does not extend to the left-hand side of function definitions; you must define such a function in prefix form.

The -XTupleSections flag enables Python-style partially applied tuple constructors. For example, the following program

  (, True)

is considered to be an alternative notation for the more unwieldy alternative

  \x -> (x, True)

You can omit any combination of arguments to the tuple, as in the following

  (, "I", , , "Love", , 1337)

which translates to

  \a b c d -> (a, "I", b, c, "Love", d, 1337)

If you have unboxed tuples enabled, tuple sections will also be available for them, like so

  (# , True #)

Because there is no unboxed unit tuple, the following expression

  (# #)

continues to stand for the unboxed singleton tuple data constructor.

In record construction and record pattern matching it is entirely unambiguous which field is referred to, even if there are two different data types in scope with a common field name. For example:

module M where
  data S = MkS { x :: Int, y :: Bool }

module Foo where
  import M

  data T = MkT { x :: Int }

  ok1 (MkS { x = n }) = n+1   -- Unambiguous
  ok2 n = MkT { x = n+1 }     -- Unambiguous

  bad1 k = k { x = 3 }  -- Ambiguous
  bad2 k = x k          -- Ambiguous

Even though there are two x's in scope, it is clear that the x in the pattern in the definition of ok1 can only mean the field x from type S. Similarly for the function ok2. However, in the record update in bad1 and the record selection in bad2 it is not clear which of the two types is intended.

Haskell 98 regards all four as ambiguous, but with the -XDisambiguateRecordFields flag, GHC will accept the former two. The rules are precisely the same as those for instance declarations in Haskell 98, where the method names on the left-hand side of the method bindings in an instance declaration refer unambiguously to the method of that class (provided they are in scope at all), even if there are other variables in scope with the same name. This reduces the clutter of qualified names when you import two records from different modules that use the same field name.

Some details:

Record puns are enabled by the flag -XNamedFieldPuns.

When using records, it is common to write a pattern that binds a variable with the same name as a record field, such as:

data C = C {a :: Int}
f (C {a = a}) = a

Record punning permits the variable name to be elided, so one can simply write

f (C {a}) = a

to mean the same pattern as above. That is, in a record pattern, the pattern a expands into the pattern a = a for the same name a.

Note that:

Record wildcards are enabled by the flag -XRecordWildCards. This flag implies -XDisambiguateRecordFields.

For records with many fields, it can be tiresome to write out each field individually in a record pattern, as in

data C = C {a :: Int, b :: Int, c :: Int, d :: Int}
f (C {a = 1, b = b, c = c, d = d}) = b + c + d

Record wildcard syntax permits a ".." in a record pattern, where each elided field f is replaced by the pattern f = f. For example, the above pattern can be written as

f (C {a = 1, ..}) = b + c + d

More details:

A careful reading of the Haskell 98 Report reveals that fixity declarations (infix, infixl, and infixr) are permitted to appear inside local bindings such those introduced by let and where. However, the Haskell Report does not specify the semantics of such bindings very precisely.

In GHC, a fixity declaration may accompany a local binding:

let f = ...
    infixr 3 `f`
in
    ...

and the fixity declaration applies wherever the binding is in scope. For example, in a let, it applies in the right-hand sides of other let-bindings and the body of the letC. Or, in recursive do expressions (Section 7.3.7, “The recursive do-notation ”), the local fixity declarations of a let statement scope over other statements in the group, just as the bound name does.

Moreover, a local fixity declaration *must* accompany a local binding of that name: it is not possible to revise the fixity of name bound elsewhere, as in

let infixr 9 $ in ...

Because local fixity declarations are technically Haskell 98, no flag is necessary to enable them.

With the -XPackageImports flag, GHC allows import declarations to be qualified by the package name that the module is intended to be imported from. For example:

import "network" Network.Socket

would import the module Network.Socket from the package network (any version). This may be used to disambiguate an import when the same module is available from multiple packages, or is present in both the current package being built and an external package.

Note: you probably don't need to use this feature, it was added mainly so that we can build backwards-compatible versions of packages when APIs change. It can lead to fragile dependencies in the common case: modules occasionally move from one package to another, rendering any package-qualified imports broken.

With the -XSafeImports flag, GHC extends the import declaration syntax to take an optional safe keyword after the import keyword. This feature is part of the Safe Haskell GHC extension. For example:

import safe qualified Network.Socket as NS

would import the module Network.Socket with compilation only succeeding if Network.Socket can be safely imported. For a description of when a import is considered safe see Section 7.20, “Safe Haskell”

Turning on an option that enables special syntax might cause working Haskell 98 code to fail to compile, perhaps because it uses a variable name which has become a reserved word. This section lists the syntax that is "stolen" by language extensions. We use notation and nonterminal names from the Haskell 98 lexical syntax (see the Haskell 98 Report). We only list syntax changes here that might affect existing working programs (i.e. "stolen" syntax). Many of these extensions will also enable new context-free syntax, but in all cases programs written to use the new syntax would not be compilable without the option enabled.

There are two classes of special syntax:

The following syntax is stolen: