Safe and polymorphic toEnum

Posted by jetxee on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by jetxee
Published on 2010-04-30T10:36:26Z Indexed on 2010/04/30 11:37 UTC
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I'd like to write a safe version of toEnum:

 safeToEnum :: (Enum t, Bounded t) => Int -> Maybe t

A naive implementation:

safeToEnum :: (Enum t, Bounded t) => Int -> Maybe t
safeToEnum i =
  if (i >= fromEnum (minBound :: t)) && (i <= fromEnum (maxBound :: t))
    then Just . toEnum $ i
    else Nothing

main = do
  print $ (safeToEnum 1 :: Maybe Bool)
  print $ (safeToEnum 2 :: Maybe Bool)

And it doesn't work:

safeToEnum.hs:3:21:
    Could not deduce (Bounded t1) from the context ()
      arising from a use of `minBound' at safeToEnum.hs:3:21-28
    Possible fix:
      add (Bounded t1) to the context of an expression type signature
    In the first argument of `fromEnum', namely `(minBound :: t)'
    In the second argument of `(>=)', namely `fromEnum (minBound :: t)'
    In the first argument of `(&&)', namely
        `(i >= fromEnum (minBound :: t))'

safeToEnum.hs:3:56:
    Could not deduce (Bounded t1) from the context ()
      arising from a use of `maxBound' at safeToEnum.hs:3:56-63
    Possible fix:
      add (Bounded t1) to the context of an expression type signature
    In the first argument of `fromEnum', namely `(maxBound :: t)'
    In the second argument of `(<=)', namely `fromEnum (maxBound :: t)'
    In the second argument of `(&&)', namely
        `(i <= fromEnum (maxBound :: t))'

As well as I understand the message, the compiler does not recognize that minBound and maxBound should produce exactly the same type as in the result type of safeToEnum inspite of the explicit type declaration (:: t). Any idea how to fix it?

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