constructor name clashes

[Steffen Mazanek]

Hello.

>Also, when declaring named fields of a type, such as
>data Data1 = Data1{ok1::Bool}
>data Data2 = Data2{ok2::Bool}
>the field names for different type also have to be unique.
>  
>
All function declarations in a module have to be unique. And, e.g., the
data constructor Data1 is a function with type Bool->Data1 and as such
it has to be globally unique as well.

>Isn't that annoying? Keeping all the names unique is no easy task in my
>opinion. Wouldn't it be nice if we can have something similar to structure
>fields in C? Or maybe this is already present and I'm just being ignorant?
>  
>
You may have a look at TREX or OHaskell. In TREX (available with Hugs) 
and OHaskell
(http://www.math.chalmers.se/~nordland/ohaskell/) you can define records.
For instance, this is a valid OHaskell program:

data Monochrome = Black | White
data Color > Monochrome = Red | Blue

Thereby the data type Color inherits the constructors Black and White 
from Monochrome.
Even so, it is not possible to use the same constructors without 
establishing a subtype relationship.

AFAIK Haskell98 lacks this possibility. But you can use named fields in 
the same declaration
as long as their type remains the same.

Ciao,
Steffen