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haskellfunctorapplicativecustom-data-type

Using functors/applicatives on custom data types with multiple type classes?


Consider a Users type with two parameters, a and b. Clearly, this enables User to be composed of two different types:

data Users a b = User a b deriving (Show, Eq, Ord)

How can we declare functors and applicative for this instance?

I've tried these approaches won't compile:

instance Functor Users where
   fmap f(User a b) = User (f a) (f b) 

instance Applicative Users where
   pure a b = User a b
   (<*>) User a b = (fmap a) (fmap b)

What's the reason these won't compile?


Solution

  • Have a look at Data.Bifunctor for a type class for ADTs which are functorial in both arguments. User is then just a fancy name for tuple, and this already supports such an instance. Deriving a bifunctor instance is possible in Haskell.

    @Bakuriu suggests defining User as a newtype and the using the extension GeneralizedNewtypeDeriving.

    For the second one, see Biapplicative. As to be expected, its instance for (,) is:

    instance Biapplicative (,) where
      pure = (,)
      ap (f, g) (a, b) = (f a, g b)