Seq is very, very special! So we recognise it right here, and desugar to
case x of _ -> case y of _ -> (# x,y #)
-Note [Desugaring seq (2)] cf Trac #2231
+Note [Desugaring seq (2)] cf Trac #2273
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Consider
let chp = case b of { True -> fst x; False -> 0 }
But that's painful. So the code here does a little hack to make seq
more robust: a saturated application of 'seq' is turned *directly* into
-the case expression. So we desugar to:
+the case expression, thus:
+ x `seq` e2 ==> case x of x -> e2 -- Note shadowing!
+ e1 `seq` e2 ==> case x of _ -> e2
+
+So we desugar our example to:
let chp = case b of { True -> fst x; False -> 0 }
case chp of chp { I# -> ...chp... }
-Notice the shadowing of the case binder! And now all is well.
+And now all is well.
The reason it's a hack is because if you define mySeq=seq, the hack
won't work on mySeq.