Haskell Language Lens Fields with makeFields
Example
(This example copied from this StackOverflow answer)
Let's say you have a number of different data types that all ought to have a lens with the same name, in this case capacity. The makeFields slice will create a class that accomplish this without namespace conflicts.
{-# LANGUAGE FunctionalDependencies
, MultiParamTypeClasses
, TemplateHaskell
#-}
module Foo
where
import Control.Lens
data Foo
= Foo { fooCapacity :: Int }
deriving (Eq, Show)
$(makeFields ''Foo)
data Bar
= Bar { barCapacity :: Double }
deriving (Eq, Show)
$(makeFields ''Bar)
Then in ghci:
*Foo
λ let f = Foo 3
| b = Bar 7
|
b :: Bar
f :: Foo
*Foo
λ fooCapacity f
3
it :: Int
*Foo
λ barCapacity b
7.0
it :: Double
*Foo
λ f ^. capacity
3
it :: Int
*Foo
λ b ^. capacity
7.0
it :: Double
λ :info HasCapacity
class HasCapacity s a | s -> a where
capacity :: Lens' s a
-- Defined at Foo.hs:14:3
instance HasCapacity Foo Int -- Defined at Foo.hs:14:3
instance HasCapacity Bar Double -- Defined at Foo.hs:19:3
So what it's actually done is declared a class HasCapacity s a, where capacity is a Lens' from s to a (a is fixed once s is known). It figured out the name "capacity" by stripping off the (lowercased) name of the data type from the field; I find it pleasant not to have to use an underscore on either the field name or the lens name, since sometimes record syntax is actually what you want. You can use makeFieldsWith and the various lensRules to have some different options for calculating the lens names.
In case it helps, using ghci -ddump-splices Foo.hs:
[1 of 1] Compiling Foo ( Foo.hs, interpreted )
Foo.hs:14:3-18: Splicing declarations
makeFields ''Foo
======>
class HasCapacity s a | s -> a where
capacity :: Lens' s a
instance HasCapacity Foo Int where
{-# INLINE capacity #-}
capacity = iso (\ (Foo x_a7fG) -> x_a7fG) Foo
Foo.hs:19:3-18: Splicing declarations
makeFields ''Bar
======>
instance HasCapacity Bar Double where
{-# INLINE capacity #-}
capacity = iso (\ (Bar x_a7ne) -> x_a7ne) Bar
Ok, modules loaded: Foo.
So the first splice made the class HasCapcity and added an instance for Foo; the second used the existing class and made an instance for Bar.
This also works if you import the HasCapcity class from another module; makeFields can add more instances to the existing class and spread your types out across multiple modules. But if you use it again in another module where you haven't imported the class, it'll make a new class (with the same name), and you'll have two separate overloaded capacity lenses that are not compatible.
