[project @ 2002-02-27 10:26:13 by simonmar]
[ghc-hetmet.git] / ghc / docs / users_guide / vs_haskell.sgml
index d3f2d3b..87c6b9c 100644 (file)
-<Sect1 id="vs-Haskell-defn">
-<Title>Haskell&nbsp;98 vs.&nbsp;Glasgow Haskell: language non-compliance
-</Title>
-
-<Para>
-<IndexTerm><Primary>GHC vs the Haskell 98 language</Primary></IndexTerm>
-<IndexTerm><Primary>Haskell 98 language vs GHC</Primary></IndexTerm>
-</Para>
-
-<Para>
-This section lists Glasgow Haskell infelicities in its implementation
-of Haskell&nbsp;98.  See also the ``when things go wrong'' section
-(<XRef LinkEnd="wrong">)
-for information about crashes, space leaks, and other undesirable
-phenomena.
-</Para>
-
-<Para>
-The limitations here are listed in Haskell-Report order (roughly).
-</Para>
-
-<Sect2 id="infelicities-exprs-pats">
-<Title>Expressions and patterns
-</Title>
-
-<Para>
-<VariableList>
-
-<VarListEntry>
-<Term>Very long <Literal>String</Literal> constants:</Term>
-<ListItem>
-<Para>
-May not go through.  If you add a ``string gap'' every
-few thousand characters, then the strings can be as long
-as you like.
-</Para>
-
-<Para>
-Bear in mind that string gaps and the <Literal>-cpp</Literal><IndexTerm><Primary>-cpp option</Primary></IndexTerm>
-option don't mix very well (see <XRef LinkEnd="c-pre-processor">).
-</Para>
-</ListItem>
-</VarListEntry>
-<VarListEntry>
-<Term>Very long literal lists:</Term>
-<ListItem>
-<Para>
-These may tickle a ``yacc stack overflow'' error in the parser.
-(It depends on the Yacc used to build your parser.)
-</Para>
-</ListItem>
-</VarListEntry>
-<VarListEntry>
-<Term>Single quotes in module names:</Term>
-<ListItem>
-<Para>
-It might work, but it's just begging for trouble.
-</Para>
-</ListItem>
-</VarListEntry>
-</VariableList>
-</Para>
-
-</Sect2>
-
-<Sect2 id="infelicities-decls">
-<Title>Declarations and bindings
-</Title>
-
-<Para>
-<VariableList>
-
-<VarListEntry>
-<Term>Derived instances for records:</Term>
-<ListItem>
-<Para>
-Hmmm.
-</Para>
-</ListItem>
-</VarListEntry>
-</VariableList>
-</Para>
-
-</Sect2>
-
-<Sect2 id="infelicities-Modules">
-<Title>Module system and interface files
-</Title>
-
-<Para>
-<VariableList>
-
-<VarListEntry>
-<Term> Namespace pollution </Term>
-<ListItem>
-<Para>
-Several modules internal to GHC are visible in the standard namespace.
-All of these modules begin with <Literal>Prel</Literal>, so the rule is: don't use any
-modules beginning with <Literal>Prel</Literal> in your program, or you will be
-comprehensively screwed.
-</Para>
-</ListItem>
-</VarListEntry>
-</VariableList>
-</Para>
-
-</Sect2>
-
-<Sect2 id="infelicities-numbers">
-<Title>Numbers, basic types, and built-in classes
-</Title>
-
-<Para>
-<VariableList>
-
-<VarListEntry>
-<Term>Unchecked arithmetic:</Term>
-<ListItem>
-<Para>
-Arguably <Emphasis>not</Emphasis> an infelicity, but&hellip; Bear in mind that
-operations on <Literal>Int</Literal>, <Literal>Float</Literal>, and <Literal>Double</Literal> numbers are
-<Emphasis>unchecked</Emphasis> for overflow, underflow, and other sad occurrences.
-(note, however that some architectures trap floating-point overflow
-and loss-of-precision and report a floating-point
-exception)<IndexTerm><Primary>floating-point exceptions</Primary></IndexTerm>.
-</Para>
-
-<Para>
-Use <Literal>Integer</Literal>, <Literal>Rational</Literal>, etc., numeric types if this stuff
-keeps you awake at night.
-</Para>
-</ListItem>
-</VarListEntry>
-<VarListEntry>
-<Term>Multiply-defined array elements&mdash;not checked:</Term>
-<ListItem>
-<Para>
-This code fragment <Emphasis>should</Emphasis> elicit a fatal error, but it does not:
-
-<ProgramListing>
-main = print (array (1,1) [ 1:=2, 1:=3 ])
-</ProgramListing>
-
-</Para>
-</ListItem>
-</VarListEntry>
-</VariableList>
-</Para>
-
-</Sect2>
-
-<Sect2 id="infelicities-Prelude">
-<Title>In Prelude support
-</Title>
-
-<Para>
-<VariableList>
-
-<VarListEntry>
-<Term>Arbitrary-sized tuples:</Term>
-<ListItem>
-<Para>
-Plain old tuples of arbitrary size <Emphasis>do</Emphasis> work.
-</Para>
-
-<Para>
-HOWEVER: standard instances for tuples (<Literal>Eq</Literal>, <Literal>Ord</Literal>, <Literal>Bounded</Literal>, <Literal>Ix</Literal>
-<Literal>Read</Literal>, and <Literal>Show</Literal>) are available <Emphasis>only</Emphasis> up to 5-tuples.
-</Para>
-
-<Para>
-These limitations are easily subvertible, so please ask if you get
-stuck on them.
-</Para>
-</ListItem>
-</VarListEntry>
-<VarListEntry>
-<Term>Unicode character set:</Term>
-<ListItem>
-<Para>
-Haskell 98 embraces the Unicode character set, but GHC doesn't
-handle it. Yet.
-</Para>
-</ListItem>
-</VarListEntry>
-</VariableList>
-</Para>
-
-</Sect2>
-
-</Sect1>
+<sect1 id="vs-Haskell-defn">
+  <title>Haskell&nbsp;98 vs.&nbsp;Glasgow Haskell: language non-compliance
+</title>
+
+  <indexterm><primary>GHC vs the Haskell 98 language</primary></indexterm>
+  <indexterm><primary>Haskell 98 language vs GHC</primary></indexterm>
+
+  <para>This section lists Glasgow Haskell infelicities in its
+  implementation of Haskell&nbsp;98.  See also the &ldquo;when things
+  go wrong&rdquo; section (<XRef LinkEnd="wrong">) for information
+  about crashes, space leaks, and other undesirable phenomena.</para>
+
+  <para>The limitations here are listed in Haskell Report order
+  (roughly).</para>
+
+  <sect2 id="haskell98-divergence">
+    <title>Divergence from Haskell&nbsp;98</title>
+    
+      
+    <sect3 id="infelicities-lexical">
+      <title>Lexical syntax</title>
+      
+      <itemizedlist>
+       <listitem>
+         <para>The Haskell report specifies that programs may be
+         written using Unicode.  GHC only accepts the ISO-8859-1
+         character set at the moment.</para>
+       </listitem>
+
+       <listitem>
+         <para>Certain lexical rules regarding qualified identifiers
+         are slightly different in GHC compared to the Haskell
+         report.  When you have
+         <replaceable>module</replaceable><literal>.</literal><replaceable>reservedop</replaceable>,
+         such as <literal>M.\</literal>, GHC will interpret it as a
+         single qualified operator rather than the two lexemes
+         <literal>M</literal> and <literal>.\</literal>.</para>
+       </listitem>
+
+       <listitem>
+         <para>When <option>-fglasgow-exts</option> is on, GHC
+         reserves several keywords beginning with two underscores.
+         This is due to the fact that GHC uses the same lexical
+         analyser for interface file parsing as it does for source
+         file parsing, and these keywords are used in interface
+         files.  Do not use any identifiers beginning with a double
+         underscore in <option>-fglasgow-exts</option> mode.</para>
+       </listitem>
+      </itemizedlist>
+    </sect3>
+      
+      <sect3 id="infelicities-syntax">
+       <title>Context-free syntax</title>
+       
+      <itemizedlist>
+       <listitem>
+         <para>GHC doesn't do fixity resolution in expressions during
+         parsing.  For example, according to the Haskell report, the
+         following expression is legal Haskell:
+<programlisting>
+    let x = 42 in x == 42 == True</programlisting>
+       and parses as:
+<programlisting>
+    (let x = 42 in x == 42) == True</programlisting>
+
+          because according to the report, the <literal>let</literal>
+         expression <quote>extends as far to the right as
+         possible</quote>.  Since it can't extend past the second
+         equals sign without causing a parse error
+         (<literal>==</literal> is non-fix), the
+         <literal>let</literal>-expression must terminate there.  GHC
+         simply gobbles up the whole expression, parsing like this:
+<programlisting>
+    (let x = 42 in x == 42 == True)</programlisting>
+
+          The Haskell report is arguably wrong here, but nevertheless
+          it's a difference between GHC & Haskell 98.</para>
+       </listitem>
+      </itemizedlist>
+    </sect3>
+
+  <sect3 id="infelicities-exprs-pats">
+      <title>Expressions and patterns</title>
+
+      <variablelist>
+       <varlistentry>
+         <term>Very long <literal>String</literal> constants:</term>
+         <listitem>
+           <para>May not go through.  If you add a &ldquo;string
+            gap&rdquo; every few thousand characters, then the strings
+            can be as long as you like.</para>
+
+           <para>Bear in mind that string gaps and the
+            <option>-cpp</option><indexterm><primary><option>-cpp</option>
+            </primary></indexterm> option don't mix very well (see
+            <xref linkend="c-pre-processor">).</para>
+         </listitem>
+       </varlistentry>
+      </variablelist>
+
+    </sect3>
+
+    <sect3 id="infelicities-decls">
+      <title>Declarations and bindings</title>
+
+      <para>None known.</para>
+
+    </sect3>
+
+    <sect3 id="infelicities-Modules">
+      <title>Module system and interface files</title>
+
+      <variablelist>
+
+       <varlistentry>
+         <term> Namespace pollution </term>
+         <listitem>
+           <para>Several modules internal to GHC are visible in the
+            standard namespace.  All of these modules begin with
+            <literal>Prel</literal>, so the rule is: don't use any
+            modules beginning with <literal>Prel</literal> in your
+            program, or you may be comprehensively screwed.</para>
+         </listitem>
+       </varlistentry>
+      </variablelist>
+
+    </sect3>
+
+    <sect3 id="infelicities-numbers">
+      <title>Numbers, basic types, and built-in classes</title>
+
+      <variablelist>
+       <varlistentry>
+         <term>Multiply-defined array elements&mdash;not checked:</term>
+         <listitem>
+           <para>This code fragment <emphasis>should</emphasis>
+           elicit a fatal error, but it does not:
+
+<programlisting>
+main = print (array (1,1) [(1,2), (1,3)])</programlisting>
+
+            </para>
+         </listitem>
+       </varlistentry>
+      </variablelist>
+      
+    </sect3>
+
+      <sect3 id="infelicities-Prelude">
+       <title>In Prelude support</title>
+
+      <variablelist>
+       <varlistentry>
+         <term>The <literal>Char</literal> type</term>
+         <indexterm><primary><literal>Char</literal></primary><secondary>size
+         of</secondary></indexterm>
+         <listitem>
+           <para>The Haskell report says that the
+           <literal>Char</literal> type holds 16 bits.  GHC follows
+           the ISO-10646 standard a little more closely:
+           <literal>maxBound :: Char</literal> in GHC is
+           <literal>0x10FFFF</literal>.</para>
+         </listitem>
+       </varlistentry>
+
+       <varlistentry>
+         <term>Arbitrary-sized tuples:</term>
+         <listitem>
+           <para>Tuples are currently limited to size 61.  HOWEVER:
+            standard instances for tuples (<literal>Eq</literal>,
+            <literal>Ord</literal>, <literal>Bounded</literal>,
+            <literal>Ix</literal> <literal>Read</literal>, and
+            <literal>Show</literal>) are available
+            <emphasis>only</emphasis> up to 5-tuples.</para>
+
+           <para>This limitation is easily subvertible, so please ask
+            if you get stuck on it.</para>
+           </listitem>
+         </varlistentry>
+       </variablelist>
+    </sect3>
+  </sect2>
+
+  <sect2 id="haskell98-undefined">
+    <title>GHC's interpretation of undefined behaviour in
+    Haskell&nbsp;98</title>
+
+    <para>This section documents GHC's take on various issues that are
+    left undefined or implementation specific in Haskell 98.</para>
+
+    <variablelist>
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term>Sized integral types</term>
+       <indexterm><primary><literal>Int</literal></primary><secondary>size of</secondary>
+       </indexterm>
+       
+       <listitem>
+         <para>In GHC the <literal>Int</literal> type follows the
+         size of an address on the host architecture; in other words
+         it holds 32 bits on a 32-bit machine, and 64-bits on a
+         64-bit machine.</para>
+
+         <para>Arithmetic on <literal>Int</literal> is unchecked for
+         overflow<indexterm><primary>overflow</primary><secondary><literal>Int</literal></secondary>
+           </indexterm>, so all operations on <literal>Int</literal> happen
+         modulo
+         2<superscript><replaceable>n</replaceable></superscript>
+         where <replaceable>n</replaceable> is the size in bits of
+         the <literal>Int</literal> type.</para>
+
+         <para>The <literal>fromInteger</literal><indexterm><primary><literal>fromInteger</literal></primary>
+           </indexterm>function (and hence
+         also <literal>fromIntegral</literal><indexterm><primary><literal>fromIntegral</literal></primary>
+           </indexterm>) is a special case when
+         converting to <literal>Int</literal>.  The value of
+         <literal>fromIntegral x :: Int</literal> is given by taking
+         the lower <replaceable>n</replaceable> bits of <literal>(abs
+         x)</literal>, multiplied by the sign of <literal>x</literal>
+         (in 2's complement <replaceable>n</replaceable>-bit
+         arithmetic).  This behaviour was chosen so that for example
+         writing <literal>0xffffffff :: Int</literal> preserves the
+         bit-pattern in the resulting <literal>Int</literal>.</para>
+
+         <para>The <literal>fromIntegral</literal> function also
+         preserves bit-patterns when converting between the sized
+         integral types (<literal>Int8</literal>,
+         <literal>Int16</literal>, <literal>Int32</literal>,
+         <literal>Int64</literal> and the unsigned
+         <literal>Word</literal> variants), see <xref
+         linkend="sec-Int"> and <xref linkend="sec-Word">.</para>
+
+       </listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term>Unchecked float arithmetic</term>
+       <listitem>
+         <para>Operations on <literal>Float</literal> and
+          <literal>Double</literal> numbers are
+          <emphasis>unchecked</emphasis> for overflow, underflow, and
+          other sad occurrences.  (note, however that some
+          architectures trap floating-point overflow and
+          loss-of-precision and report a floating-point exception,
+          probably terminating the
+          program)<indexterm><primary>floating-point
+          exceptions</primary></indexterm>.</para>
+       </listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+    </variablelist>
+      
+  </sect2>
+
+</sect1>
+
+<!-- Emacs stuff:
+     ;;; Local Variables: ***
+     ;;; mode: sgml ***
+     ;;; sgml-parent-document: ("users_guide.sgml" "book" "chapter" "sect1") ***
+     ;;; End: ***
+ -->