How do I solve this ambiguous type variable error in Haskell? - variables

Question

I couldn't find an answer to my question among several ambiguous type variable error questions.
I'm currently trying to get this code I found to work. (https://gist.github.com/kirelagin/3886243)
My code:
import Control.Arrow
import Data.List
import qualified Data.Map as M
import Data.Function
main = do
putStrLn "Start test"
let foo = "Hello World"
let freqTest = freqList foo
putStrLn "Frequentie list"
print freqTest
putStrLn "Done.."
let treeTest = buildTree freqTest
putStrLn "Huffman Tree"
print treeTest
putStrLn "Done.."
let codeMaphTest = buildCodemap treeTest
putStrLn "Codemap ding"
-- print codeMaphTest
putStrLn "Done.."
--This typeclass is supposed to make life _a bit_ easier.
class Eq a => Bits a where
zer :: a
one :: a
instance Bits Int where
zer = 0
one = 1
instance Bits Bool where
zer = False
one = True
-- Codemap is generated from a Huffman tree. It is used for fast encoding.
type Codemap a = M.Map Char [a]
-- Huffman tree is a simple binary tree. Each leaf contains a Char and its weight.
-- Fork (node with children) also has weight = sum of weights of its children.
data HTree = Leaf Char Int
| Fork HTree HTree Int
deriving (Show)
weight :: HTree -> Int
weight (Leaf _ w) = w
weight (Fork _ _ w) = w
-- The only useful operation on Huffman trees is merging, that is we take
-- two trees and make them children of a new Fork-node.
merge t1 t2 = Fork t1 t2 (weight t1 + weight t2)
-- `freqList` is an utility function. It takes a string and produces a list
-- of pairs (character, number of occurences of this character in the string).
freqList :: String -> [(Char, Int)]
freqList = M.toList . M.fromListWith (+) . map (flip (,) 1)
-- `buildTree` builds a Huffman tree from a list of character frequencies
-- (obtained, for example, from `freqList` or elsewhere).
-- It sorts the list in ascending order by frequency, turns each (char, freq) pair
-- into a one-leaf tree and keeps merging two trees with the smallest frequencies
-- until only one tree is remaining.
buildTree :: [(Char, Int)] -> HTree
buildTree = bld . map (uncurry Leaf) . sortBy (compare `on` snd)
where bld (t:[]) = t
bld (a:b:cs) = bld $ insertBy (compare `on` weight) (merge a b) cs
-- The next function traverses a Huffman tree to obtain a list of codes for
-- all characters and converts this list into a `Map`.
buildCodemap :: Bits a => HTree -> Codemap a
buildCodemap = M.fromList . buildCodelist
where buildCodelist (Leaf c w) = [(c, [])]
buildCodelist (Fork l r w) = map (addBit zer) (buildCodelist l) ++ map (addBit one) (buildCodelist r)
where addBit b = second (b :)
-- Simple functions to get a Huffman tree or a `Codemap` from a `String`.
stringTree :: String -> HTree
stringTree = buildTree . freqList
stringCodemap :: Bits a => String -> Codemap a
stringCodemap = buildCodemap . stringTree
-- Time to do the real encoding and decoding!
-- Encoding function just represents each character of a string by corresponding
-- sequence of `Bit`s.
encode :: Bits a => Codemap a -> String -> [a]
encode m = concat . map (m M.!)
encode' :: Bits a => HTree -> String -> [a]
encode' t = encode $ buildCodemap t
-- Decoding is a little trickier. We have to traverse the tree until
-- we reach a leaf which means we've just finished reading a sequence
-- of `Bit`s corresponding to a single character.
-- We keep doing this to process the whole list of `Bit`s.
decode :: Bits a => HTree -> [a] -> String
decode tree = dcd tree
where dcd (Leaf c _) [] = [c]
dcd (Leaf c _) bs = c : dcd tree bs
dcd (Fork l r _) (b:bs) = dcd (if b == zer then l else r) bs
Output:
huffmancompress.hs:17:24: error:
* Ambiguous type variable `a0' arising from a use of `buildCodemap'
prevents the constraint `(Bits a0)' from being solved.
Relevant bindings include
codeMaphTest :: Codemap a0 (bound at huffmancompress.hs:17:9)
Probable fix: use a type annotation to specify what `a0' should be.
These potential instances exist:
instance Bits Bool -- Defined at huffmancompress.hs:35:10
instance Bits Int -- Defined at huffmancompress.hs:31:10
* In the expression: buildCodemap treeTest
In an equation for `codeMaphTest':
codeMaphTest = buildCodemap treeTest
In the expression:
do putStrLn "Start test"
let foo = "Hello World"
let freqTest = freqList foo
putStrLn "Frequentie list"
....
|
17 | let codeMaphTest = buildCodemap treeTest
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I've tried serveral things I found on the internet but nothing worth mentioning to be honest.
Maybe any of you guys can help me out!

Answer 1

On line 17, where the error points you:
let codeMaphTest = buildCodemap treeTest
What type is codeMaphTest? Should it be Codemap Int? Or Codemap String? Or, perhaps, Codemap Bool? The function buildCodemap can return any type, as long as it has an instance of Bit. So what type should it be?
The compiler doesn't know. There is nowhere to glean this information from. It's ambiguous.
And this is exactly what the compiler is telling you: "ambiguous type variable".
One way to fix this is to provide a type annotation (exactly as the error message says, by the way):
let codeMaphTest :: Codemap Int = buildCodemap treeTest
Note that I chose Int just as an example, because I don't know which type you meant (I'm somewhat like the compiler in that respect). Please substitute your own type - the one you actually wanted there.

Answer 2

Your code is indeed ambiguous. buildCodemap treeTest has a polymorphic type Bits a => Codemap a, so it can be used as a Codemap Int, a Codemap Bool, or even as another type if you defines further instances of Bits.
This is not a problem, on its own, but later on you try to use this value (e.g., to print it), so we really need to pick a concrete type a.
You could pick a at the definition point:
let codeMaphTest :: Codemap Int
codeMaphTest = buildCodemap treeTest
Or, alternatively, you could choose a later on, where you use it
print (codeMaphTest :: Codemap Int)