Headline

A means of constraining a polymorphic type

Illustration

The notion of type constraint is pretty general as it occurs in different ways in programming languages which is why we do not attempt a comprehensive description here. Instead, we briefly compare how type constraints show up in Java versus Haskell.

We use the following problem to illustrate type constraints: Suppose you want to count the elements in an array that are greater than a given element. This sort of function (or method) would need to be parametric in the element type of the array and that type would also need to be constrained to admit comparison.

Type constraints in Java

The type signature for a suitable method for the problem at hand is of the following form:

public static <T extends Comparable<T>> int countGreaterThan(T[] anArray, T elem)

Type constraints in Java

The type signature for a suitable function for the problem at hand is of the following form:

countGreaterThan :: Ord t => [t] -> t -> Ordering

Haskell's type constraints are discussed in more detail in the broader context of type signatures.


Marcel Heinz edited this article at Wed, 31 Jan 2018 12:18:32 +0100
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