Coercible is a two-parameter class that has instances for types a and b if the compiler can infer that they have the same representation. This class does not have regular instances; instead they are created on-the-fly during type-checking. Trying to manually declare an instance of Coercible is an error.

Nevertheless one can pretend that the following three kinds of instances exist. First, as a trivial base-case:

instance Coercible a a

Furthermore, for every type constructor there is an instance that allows to coerce under the type constructor. For example, let D be a prototypical type constructor (data or newtype) with three type arguments, which have roles nominal, representational resp. phantom. Then there is an instance of the form

instance Coercible b b' => Coercible (D a b c) (D a b' c')

Note that the nominal type arguments are equal, the representational type arguments can differ, but need to have a Coercible instance themself, and the phantom type arguments can be changed arbitrarily.

The third kind of instance exists for every newtype NT = MkNT T and comes in two variants, namely

instance Coercible a T => Coercible a NT

instance Coercible T b => Coercible NT b

This instance is only usable if the constructor MkNT is in scope.

If, as a library author of a type constructor like Set a, you want to prevent a user of your module to write coerce :: Set T -> Set NT, you need to set the role of Set's type parameter to nominal, by writing

type role Set nominal

For more details about this feature, please refer to Safe Coercions by Joachim Breitner, Richard A. Eisenberg, Simon Peyton Jones and Stephanie Weirich.

Since: ghc-prim-4.7.0.0

The function coerce allows you to safely convert between values of types that have the same representation with no run-time overhead. In the simplest case you can use it instead of a newtype constructor, to go from the newtype's concrete type to the abstract type. But it also works in more complicated settings, e.g. converting a list of newtypes to a list of concrete types.

Representational equality. If Coercion a b is inhabited by some terminating value, then the type a has the same underlying representation as the type b.

To use this equality in practice, pattern-match on the Coercion a b to get out the Coercible a b instance, and then use coerce to apply it.

Since: base-4.7.0.0

Type-safe cast, using representational equality

Generalized form of type-safe cast using representational equality

Since: base-4.10.0.0

Symmetry of representational equality

Transitivity of representational equality

Convert propositional (nominal) equality to representational equality

This class contains types where you can learn the equality of two types from information contained in terms. Typically, only singleton types should inhabit this class.