ghci> reverse []
</programlisting>
What should GHCi do? Strictly speaking, the program is ambiguous. <literal>show (reverse [])</literal>
- (which is what GHCi computes here) has type <literal>Show a => a</literal> and how that displays depends
+ (which is what GHCi computes here) has type <literal>Show a => String</literal> and how that displays depends
on the type <literal>a</literal>. For example:
<programlisting>
- ghci> (reverse []) :: String
+ ghci> reverse ([] :: String)
""
- ghci> (reverse []) :: [Int]
+ ghci> reverse ([] :: [Int])
[]
</programlisting>
However, it is tiresome for the user to have to specify the type, so GHCi extends Haskell's type-defaulting