"Shawn P. Garbett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm trying to modify Richard Bird's state transformer. The example > in his book (_Introduction_to_Functional_Programming_using_Haskell_) > has State defined as a explicit type.
> I.e. Here's the relevant snippet: > -- State transformer definition > newtype St a = MkSt (State -> (a, State)) > type State = Int > -- State transformer applied to state > apply :: St a -> State -> (a, State) > apply (MkSt f) s = f s > -- State monad > instance Monad St where > return x = MkSt f where f s = (x,s) > p >>= q = MkSt f where f s = apply (q x) s' > where (x, s') = apply p s > ----------------------------------------- > What I want is something like this, so that the state transformer > has a generic state type: Btw: This has already been done, in GHC: see the ST module in GHC's library <http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/base/Control.Monad.ST.html>. To answer your specific question, though: > newtype St a s = MkSt (s -> (a, s)) These are in the wrong order (see below); you want: > newtype St s a = MkSt (s -> (a, s)) > apply :: St a s -> s -> (a, s) > apply (MkSt f) s = f s Again, s/St a s/St s a/. > instance Monad St where > return x = MkSt f where f s = (x,s) > p >>= q = MkSt f where f s = apply (q x) s' > where (x, s') = apply p s > ----------------------------------------------------------- > The trouble occurs on the instance line > Couldn't match `*' against `* -> *' > Expected kind: (* -> *) -> * > Inferred kind: (* -> * -> *) -> * > When checking kinds in `Monad St' > In the instance declaration for `Monad St' > Failed, modules loaded: none. Right. The problem here is that St is a type constructor with two arguments (i.e., of kind (* -> * -> *)), whereas Monad wants a type constructor with one argument (i.e., of kind (* -> *)). Hence the error. This is the same type of error you'd get if you tried to declare an instance for `Eq Tree', where `Tree' is a standard (polymorphic) BST. The way you solve that is to instantiate `Eq (Tree a)', and it's the same thing here: instantiate `Monad (St s)'. Of course, you need to switch the order of the arguments to St first (as done above), so Haskell knows `s' is a the state type, not the result type. HTH Jon Cast _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe