remove "special Ids" section, replace with a link to GHC.Prim

This documentation was just duplicating what is in GHC.Prim now.

diff --git a/docs/users_guide/glasgow_exts.xml b/docs/users_guide/glasgow_exts.xml
index 90333b4..2857858 100644 (file)
--- a/docs/users_guide/glasgow_exts.xml
+++ b/docs/users_guide/glasgow_exts.xml
@@ -6380,112 +6380,10 @@ r) ->
 
 <sect1 id="special-ids">
 <title>Special built-in functions</title>
-<para>GHC has a few built-in funcions with special behaviour, 
-described in this section.  All are exported by
-<literal>GHC.Exts</literal>.</para>
-
-<sect2> <title>The <literal>seq</literal> function </title>
-<para>
-The function <literal>seq</literal> is as described in the Haskell98 Report.
-<programlisting>
-  seq :: a -> b -> b
-</programlisting>
-It evaluates its first argument to head normal form, and then returns its
-second argument as the result.  The reason that it is documented here is 
-that, despite <literal>seq</literal>'s polymorphism, its 
-second argument can have an unboxed type, or
-can be an unboxed tuple; for example <literal>(seq x 4#)</literal>
-or <literal>(seq x (# p,q #))</literal>.  This requires <literal>b</literal>
-to be instantiated to an unboxed type, which is not usually allowed.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<sect2> <title>The <literal>inline</literal> function </title>
-<para>
-The <literal>inline</literal> function is somewhat experimental.
-<programlisting>
-  inline :: a -> a
-</programlisting>
-The call <literal>(inline f)</literal> arranges that <literal>f</literal> 
-is inlined, regardless of its size.  More precisely, the call
-<literal>(inline f)</literal> rewrites to the right-hand side of <literal>f</literal>'s 
-definition.  
-This allows the programmer to control inlining from 
-a particular <emphasis>call site</emphasis>
-rather than the <emphasis>definition site</emphasis> of the function 
-(c.f. <literal>INLINE</literal> pragmas <xref linkend="inline-noinline-pragma"/>).
-</para>
-<para>
-This inlining occurs regardless of the argument to the call
-or the size of <literal>f</literal>'s definition; it is unconditional.
-The main caveat is that <literal>f</literal>'s definition must be
-visible to the compiler.  That is, <literal>f</literal> must be
-let-bound in the current scope.
-If no inlining takes place, the <literal>inline</literal> function
-expands to the identity function in Phase zero; so its use imposes
-no overhead.</para>
-
-<para> If the function is defined in another
-module, GHC only exposes its inlining in the interface file if the
-function is sufficiently small that it <emphasis>might</emphasis> be
-inlined by the automatic mechanism.  There is currently no way to tell
-GHC to expose arbitrarily-large functions in the interface file.  (This
-shortcoming is something that could be fixed, with some kind of pragma.)
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<sect2> <title>The <literal>lazy</literal> function </title>
-<para>
-The <literal>lazy</literal> function restrains strictness analysis a little:
-<programlisting>
-  lazy :: a -> a
-</programlisting>
-The call <literal>(lazy e)</literal> means the same as <literal>e</literal>, 
-but <literal>lazy</literal> has a magical property so far as strictness
-analysis is concerned: it is lazy in its first argument,
-even though its semantics is strict.  After strictness analysis has run,
-calls to <literal>lazy</literal> are inlined to be the identity function.
-</para>
-<para>
-This behaviour is occasionally useful when controlling evaluation order.
-Notably, <literal>lazy</literal> is used in the library definition of
-<literal>Control.Parallel.par</literal>:
-<programlisting>
-  par :: a -> b -> b
-  par x y = case (par# x) of { _ -> lazy y }
-</programlisting>
-If <literal>lazy</literal> were not lazy, <literal>par</literal> would
-look strict in <literal>y</literal> which would defeat the whole 
-purpose of <literal>par</literal>.
-</para>
-<para>
-Like <literal>seq</literal>, the argument of <literal>lazy</literal> can have
-an unboxed type.
-</para>
-
-</sect2>
-
-<sect2> <title>The <literal>unsafeCoerce#</literal> function </title>
-<para>
-The function <literal>unsafeCoerce#</literal> allows you to side-step the
-typechecker entirely.  It has type
-<programlisting>
-  unsafeCoerce# :: a -> b
-</programlisting>
-That is, it allows you to coerce any type into any other type.  If you use this
-function, you had better get it right, otherwise segmentation faults await. 
-It is generally used when you want to write a program that you know is
-well-typed, but where Haskell's type system is not expressive enough to prove
-that it is well typed.
-</para>
-<para>
-The argument to <literal>unsafeCoerce#</literal> can have unboxed types,
-although extremely bad things will happen if you coerce a boxed type 
-to an unboxed type.
-</para>
-
-</sect2>
-
+<para>GHC has a few built-in funcions with special behaviour.  These
+are now described in the module <ulink
+url="../libraries/base/GHC-Prim.html"><literal>GHC.Prim</literal></ulink>
+in the library documentation.</para>
 </sect1>