we need to do a bit more work to re-connect to source pattern locations and 
nested patterns? I can’t assess very well yet if this is a real problem though

That is a very good point.

Nevertheless, given

·         the typechecked HsSyn (i.e. still in source form, but with type 
inference fully completed

·         the independent contradiction-detector described below (which is 
independent of whether the contradiction problems it is given come from HsSyn 
or Core)
it would be easy to give source-localised error messages

Simon

From: Dimitrios Vytiniotis
Sent: 24 June 2014 11:58
To: Simon Peyton Jones; Conal Elliott; [email protected]
Cc: Nikolaos S. Papaspyrou ([email protected]); George Karachalias
Subject: RE: Pruning GADT case alternatives with uninhabitable coercion 
parameters


Yes it would be better in the sense that we don’t really want to be dealing 
with unification variables and evidence when we simply use the constraint 
solver to detect inconsistencies in possibly missing patterns, but the concern 
has been that if we are already desugared and in core maybe we need to do a bit 
more work to re-connect to source pattern locations and nested patterns? I 
can’t assess very well yet if this is a real problem though …

In general I agree that a simple constraint solver for Core might be an 
independently useful tool for this kind of optimization. (I think George had 
thought about this too).

Thanks!
d-



From: Simon Peyton Jones
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 11:41 AM
To: Conal Elliott; [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Cc: Dimitrios Vytiniotis; Nikolaos S. Papaspyrou 
([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>); George Karachalias; 
Simon Peyton Jones
Subject: RE: Pruning GADT case alternatives with uninhabitable coercion 
parameters

Conal

This also relates to detecting redundant or overlapped patterns in source 
programs. I know that Dimitrios is looking at this with Tom, Nikolas, George 
who I’m cc’ing him.

I think their current approach may be to integrate the overlap checking with 
the constraint solver in the type checker.  But that isn’t going to work for 
optimising Core.

An alternative approach would be to implement a specialised constraint solver.  
It could be MUCH simpler than the one in the inference engine, because (a) 
there are no unification variables to worry about, (b) there is no need to 
gather evidence.  More or less it’s task could be to answer the question
            Is    C |- D    definitely a contradiction?
where C are the “given” constraints (from enclosing pattern matches) and D are 
the “wanted” constraints (from the current pattern match that may be 
unreachable).

I don’t think it would be hard to implement such a function.  I’d be happy to 
help advise if someone wants to take it on.

Dimitrios: If we had such a function, then maybe it’d be better to use it for 
the pattern-matching overlap detection too?

Simon

From: ghc-devs [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Conal Elliott
Sent: 20 June 2014 18:59
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Pruning GADT case alternatives with uninhabitable coercion parameters

I'm looking for tips on pruning away impossible branches in `case` expressions 
on GADTs, due to uninhabited coercion parameter types.

Here's a simple example (rendered by HERMIT) from a type-specializion of the 
Foldable instance a GADT for perfect leaf trees in which the tree depth is part 
of the type:

> case ds of wild (Sum Int)
>   L (~# :: S (S Z) ~N Z) a1 -> f a1
>   B n1 (~# :: S (S Z) ~N S n1) uv -> ...

Note the kind of the coercion parameter to the leaf constructor (`L`): `S (S Z) 
~N Z`, i.e., 2 == 0. I think we can safely remove this branch as impossible.

The reasoning gets subtler, however.
After inlining and simplifying in the second (`B`) alternative, the following 
turns up:

>     case ds0 of wild0 (Sum Int)
>       L (~# :: n1 ~N Z) a1 -> f0 a1
>       B n2 (~# :: n1 ~N S n2) uv0 -> ...

Now I want to remove the first `L` alternative with `n1 ~ Z`, given that the 
kind `S (S Z) ~N S n1` is inhabited (since we're in the first `B` alternative), 
so that `n1 ~ S Z`. With more inlining, more such equalities pile up. Soon we 
get to an impossible `B` alternative, whose removal would then eliminate the 
rest of the recursive unfolding.

My questions:

*   Does this sort of transformation already live in GHC somewhere, and if so, 
where?
*   Are there gotchas / sources of unsoundness in the transformation I'm 
suggesting?
*   Is anyone else already working on this sort of transformation?
-- Conal

_______________________________________________
ghc-devs mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs

Reply via email to