Haskell: Am I misunderstanding how Arrows may be used?

Question

I wrote some toy code to play with the concept of Arrows. I wanted to see if I could write an Arrow which encoded the concept of a stateful function - giving a different value after different calls.

{-# LANGUAGE Arrows#-}
module StatefulFunc where

import Control.Category
import Control.Arrow

newtype StatefulFunc a b = SF { unSF :: a -> (StatefulFunc a b, b) }

idSF :: StatefulFunc a a
idSF = SF $ \a -> (idSF, a)

dotSF :: StatefulFunc b c -> StatefulFunc a b -> StatefulFunc a c
dotSF f g = SF $ \a -> 
    let (g', b) = unSF g a
        (f', c) = unSF f b
    in (dotSF f' g', c)

instance Category StatefulFunc where
  id = idSF
  (.) = dotSF

arrSF :: (a -> b) -> StatefulFunc a b
arrSF f = ret
  where ret = SF fun
        fun a = (ret, f a)

bothSF :: StatefulFunc a b -> StatefulFunc a' b' -> StatefulFunc (a, a') (b, b')
bothSF f g = SF $ \(a,a') ->
    let (f', b) = unSF f a
        (g', b') = unSF g a'
    in (bothSF f' g', (b, b'))

splitSF :: StatefulFunc a b -> StatefulFunc a b' -> StatefulFunc a (b, b')
splitSF f g = SF $ \a ->
    let (f', b) = unSF f a
        (g', b') = unSF g a
    in (splitSF f' g', (b, b'))

instance Arrow StatefulFunc where
  arr  = arrSF
  first = flip bothSF idSF
  second = bothSF idSF
  (***) = bothSF
  (&&&) = splitSF

eitherSF :: StatefulFunc a b -> StatefulFunc a' b' -> StatefulFunc (Either a a') (Either b b')
eitherSF f g = SF $ \e -> case e of
      Left a -> let (f', b) = unSF f a in (eitherSF f' g, Left b)
      Right a' -> let (g', b') = unSF g a' in (eitherSF f g', Right b')

mergeSF :: StatefulFunc a b -> StatefulFunc a' b -> StatefulFunc (Either a a') b
mergeSF f g = SF $ \e -> case e of 
      Left a -> let (f', b) = unSF f a in (mergeSF f' g, b)
      Right a' -> let (g', b) = unSF g a' in (mergeSF f g', b)

instance ArrowChoice StatefulFunc where
  left = flip eitherSF idSF
  right = eitherSF idSF
  (+++) = eitherSF
  (|||) = mergeSF

So after I went through the various type class definitions (not sure whether or how ArrowZero would work for this, so I skipped it), I defined some helper functions

evalSF :: (StatefulFunc a b) -> a -> b
evalSF f a = snd (unSF f a)

givenState :: s -> (s -> a -> (s, b)) -> StatefulFunc a b
givenState s f = SF $ \a -> let (s', b) = f s a in (givenState s' f, b)

And worked out an example of use

count :: StatefulFunc a Integer
count = givenState 1 $ \c _ -> (c+1, c)

countExample :: StatefulFunc a Integer
countExample = proc _ -> do
                  (count', one) <- count -< ()
                  (count'', two) <- count' -< ()
                  (count''', three) <- count'' -< ()
                  returnA -< three

However, when I try to compile countExample, I get "Not in scope" errors for count' and count'', which I suppose means that I need to go back to the tutorial and read up on what can be used when. I think what I'd really like anyway is something more like

countExample :: Integer
countExample =
  let (count', one) = unSF count ()
      (count'', two) = unSF count' ()
      (count''', three) = unSF count'' ()
  in three

But that's kind of awkward, and I was hoping for something a bit more natural.

Can anyone explain how I'm misunderstanding how Arrows work, and how they might be used? Is there fundamental philosophy to Arrows that I'm missing?

Haskell: Am I misunderstanding how Arrows may be used?

1 Answers