Question

I have a record in a document that use two IntMaps:

data Doc = Doc { kernels :: IntMap Kernel, nodes :: IntMap Node }

But I found that the keys from both IntMaps have different meaning and I fail to separate in two differents types and don’t get errors when mix kernel types and node types. I want to have functions that check the the keys from kernel map and node maps and don’t allow mix-up. E.g:

someFunction :: Doc -> KernelKey -> NodeKey -> a
someFunction doc k1 k2 = .....

Instead of current:

someFunction :: Doc -> Int -> Int -> a
someFunction doc k1 k2 = .... -- warning check twice k1 and k2

Is it posible? Or I shall change from IntMap to Map.

Thanks

Answer 1

You can use newtype to make wrappers around Int to distinguish their meaning.

newtype KernelKey = KernelKey Int
newtype NodeKey = NodeKey Int

someFunction :: Doc -> KernelKey -> NodeKey -> a
someFunction doc (KernelKey k1) (NodeKey k2) = ...

That way, you can still use IntMap internally, but expose a more type-safe interface, especially if you also control how the KernelKey and NodeKey values get created, i.e. you don’t export their constructors so users only get them as return values from your other functions.

Note that newtype wrappers disappear at run time, so this extra wrapping and unwrapping does not affect performance in any way.