:: Monoid m => Bool -> m -> m package:ghc-internal

If the first argument evaluates to True, then the result is the second argument. Otherwise an AssertionFailed exception is raised, containing a String with the source file and line number of the call to assert. Assertions can normally be turned on or off with a compiler flag (for GHC, assertions are normally on unless optimisation is turned on with -O or the -fignore-asserts option is given). When assertions are turned off, the first argument to assert is ignored, and the second argument is returned as the result.

This is a valid definition of stimes for an idempotent Monoid. When x <> x = x, this definition should be preferred, because it works in <math> rather than <math>

This is a valid definition of stimes for a Monoid. Unlike the default definition of stimes, it is defined for 0 and so it should be preferred where possible.

The value of seq a b is bottom if a is bottom, and otherwise equal to b. In other words, it evaluates the first argument a to weak head normal form (WHNF). seq is usually introduced to improve performance by avoiding unneeded laziness. A note on evaluation order: the expression seq a b does not guarantee that a will be evaluated before b. The only guarantee given by seq is that the both a and b will be evaluated before seq returns a value. In particular, this means that b may be evaluated before a. If you need to guarantee a specific order of evaluation, you must use the function pseq from the "parallel" package.