Formatting function types
A very common way (at least in the base libraries) of formatting function types seems to be this:
hPutBuf :: Handle -- handle to write to
-> Ptr a -- address of buffer
-> Int -- number of bytes of data in buffer
-> IO ()
I remember when I first started learning Haskell, and these many-arrowed functions seemed very strange to me: "Okay, we give it a handle, and get a pointer, and, um, from this we get an int, and from this an action? Er?"
I'd like to interject here for a moment. The way to read a Signature in that style is similar to reading a multiline summation. e.g
hPutBuf :: Handle -> Ptr a -> Int -> IO () |
hPutBuf: Handle + Ptr a + Int ------------- = IO () |
I aggree with the argument, that for beginners it is hard to see what a function returns, but that has to do with currying. A right associative way for defining a function signature would (only in this case and worse in others) be easier to read.
The problem here is that the first parameter has a distinguished look while the other parameters and the return value all look the same. I think that a naive reader is inclined to assume that line breaks are situated at major structural boundaries. Consider two different interpretations of the structure of the type term:
(((Handle (Handle
-> Ptr a) ->(Ptr a
-> Int) ->(Int
-> IO ()) -> IO ())))
Which one looks more natural?
The point of this rant is just this: the aforementioned multi-line formatting style should only be used for left-associative infix operators. For right-associative ones (such as the function arrow), the One True Way is this:
Handle ->
Ptr a ->
Int ->
IO ()
Unfortunately the first (misleading) style is used by Haddock for library documentation and GHC for error reporting.
See also
- Lauri Alanko in Haskell Cafe on Formatting function types
- and once again with more participants