Changes between Version 12 and Version 13 of CrossPackageDocumentation

Timestamp:

05/28/09 09:50:28 (4 years ago)

Author:

simonmar (IP: 213.199.128.148)

Comment:

--

CrossPackageDocumentation

@@ -25 +25 @@
 We might not need to store anything in the .haddock files if we can reconstruct all declarations from the `TyThings` available in the .hi files. We already convert instances using a conversion function `toHsType :: Type -> HsType Name`. We could try to write a conversation function `toHsDecl :: TyThing -> HsDecl Name`.
 
-Apparently, it might also be possible to do the conversion using existing Template Haskell functionality. This needs looking into.
+It might also be possible to do the conversion using existing Template Haskell functionality in GHC.  Template Haskell lets you `reify` an identify, which returns the abstract syntax of its declaration (or type).  Internally to GHC, the implementation of `reify` turns a `TyThing` into a `TH.Dec`.  There is also functionality in Template Haskell that turns `TH.Dec` into `HsSyn`, for compilation by GHC (see `hsSyn/Convert.lhs`).  Hence, in theory we have all the bits to get from `TyThing` to `HsSyn` already in GHC, we just have to connect them up.
 
 The downside of this approach is that we lose the original declaration style. For example, we don't know if a data type was declared using GADT-style syntax (with a 'where' clause), or normal style. Other examples: