Proxy package:ghc-internal

Definition of a Proxy type (poly-kinded in GHC)

Proxy is a type that holds no data, but has a phantom parameter of arbitrary type (or even kind). Its use is to provide type information, even though there is no value available of that type (or it may be too costly to create one). Historically, Proxy :: Proxy a is a safer alternative to the undefined :: a idiom.

>>> Proxy :: Proxy (Void, Int -> Int)
Proxy

Proxy can even hold types of higher kinds,

>>> Proxy :: Proxy Either
Proxy

>>> Proxy :: Proxy Functor
Proxy

>>> Proxy :: Proxy complicatedStructure
Proxy

The type constructor Proxy# is used to bear witness to some type variable. It's used when you want to pass around proxy values for doing things like modelling type applications. A Proxy# is not only unboxed, it also has a polymorphic kind, and has no runtime representation, being totally free.

A concrete, promotable proxy type, for use at the kind level. There are no instances for this because it is intended at the kind level only

asProxyTypeOf is a type-restricted version of const. It is usually used as an infix operator, and its typing forces its first argument (which is usually overloaded) to have the same type as the tag of the second.

>>> import GHC.Internal.Word

>>> :type asProxyTypeOf 123 (Proxy :: Proxy Word8)
asProxyTypeOf 123 (Proxy :: Proxy Word8) :: Word8

Note the lower-case proxy in the definition. This allows any type constructor with just one argument to be passed to the function, for example we could also write

>>> import GHC.Internal.Word

>>> :type asProxyTypeOf 123 (Just (undefined :: Word8))
asProxyTypeOf 123 (Just (undefined :: Word8)) :: Word8