Implementing Monoidal in terms of Applicative

Question

Typeclassopedia presents the following exercise:

Implement pure and (<*>) in terms of unit and (**), and vice versa.

Here\'s

Answer 1

Applicative is a neat alternative presentation of Monoidal. Both typeclasses are equivalent, and you can convert between the two without considering a specific data type like Option. The "neat alternative presentation" for Applicative is based on the following two equivalencies

pure a = fmap (const a) unit
unit = pure ()

ff <*> fa = fmap (\(f,a) -> f a) $ ff ** fa
fa ** fb = pure (,) <*> fa <*> fb

The trick to get this "neat alternative presentation" for Applicative is the same as the trick for zipWith - replace explicit types and constructors in the interface with things that the type or constructor can be passed into to recover what the original interface was.

unit :: f ()

is replaced with pure which we can substitute the type () and the constructor () :: () into to recover unit.

pure :: a  -> f a
pure    () :: f ()

And similarly (though not as straightforward) for substituting the type (a,b) and the constructor (,) :: a -> b -> (a,b) into liftA2 to recover **.

liftA2 :: (a -> b -> c) -> f a -> f b -> f c
liftA2    (,)           :: f a -> f b -> f (a,b)

Applicative then gets the nice <*> operator by lifting function application ($) :: (a -> b) -> a -> b into the functor.

(<*>) :: f (a -> b) -> f a -> f b
(<*>) = liftA2 ($)

Getting from <*> back to liftA2 is common enough that liftA2 is included in Control.Applicative. The <$> is infix fmap.

liftA2 :: Applicative f => (a -> b -> c) -> f a -> f b -> f c
liftA2 f a b = f <$> a <*> b