Propositions vs. boolean values for input validation - idris

Question

I have the following code:
doSomething : (s : String) -> (not (s == "") = True) -> String
doSomething s = ?doSomething
validate : String -> String
validate s = case (not (s == "")) of
False => s
True => doSomething s
After checking the input is not empty I would like to pass it to a function which accepts only validated input (not empty Strings).
As far as I understand the validation is taking place during runtime
but the types are calculated during compile time - thats way it doesn't work. Is there any workaround?
Also while playing with the code I noticed:
:t (("la" == "") == True)
"la" == "" == True : Bool
But
:t (("la" == "") = True)
"la" == "" = True : Type
Why the types are different?

Answer 1

This isn't about runtime vs. compile-time, since you are writing two branches in validate that take care, statically, of both the empty and the non-empty input cases; at runtime you merely choose between the two.
Your problem is Boolean blindness: if you have a value of type Bool, it is just that, a single bit that could have gone either way. This is what == gives you.
= on the other hand is for propositional equality: the only constructor of the type(-as-proposition) a = b is Refl : a = a, so by pattern-matching on a value of type a = b, you learn that a and b are truly equal.
I was able to get your example working by passing the non-equality as a proposition to doSomething:
doSomething : (s : String) -> Not (s = "") -> String
doSomething "" wtf = void $ wtf Refl
doSomething s nonEmpty = ?doSomething
validate : String -> String
validate "" = ""
validate s = doSomething s nonEmpty
where
nonEmpty : Not (s = "")
nonEmpty Refl impossible

Answer 2

As far as I understand the validation is taking place during runtime
but the types are calculated during compile time - thats way it
doesn't work.
That's not correct. It doesn't work because
We need the with form to perform dependent pattern matching, i. e. perform substitution and refinement on the context based on information gained from specific data constructors.
Even if we use with here, not (s == "") isn't anywhere in the context when we do the pattern match, therefore there's nothing to rewrite (in the context), and we can't demonstrate the not (s == "") = True equality later when we'd like to call doSomething.
We can use a wrapper data type here that lets us save a proof that a specific pattern equals the original expression we matched on:
doSomething : (s : String) -> (not (s == "") = True) -> String
doSomething s = ?doSomething
data Inspect : a -> Type where
Match : {A : Type} -> {x : A} -> (y : A) -> x = y -> Inspect x
inspect : {A : Type} -> (x : A) -> Inspect x
inspect x = Match x Refl
validate : String -> String
validate s with (inspect (not (s == "")))
| Match True p = doSomething s p
| Match False p = s