Get type of a “singleton type”

Question

We can create a literal types via shapeless:

import shapeless.syntax.singleton._
var x = 42.narrow
// x: Int(42) = 42

But how can I operate wit

Answer 1

Int(42) is not a valid Scala syntax for type.

IIRC singleton types were implemented in scalac for a while, but programmers had no syntax of defining such. Shapeless provides that, with macros, as well as some extra machinery.

In particular, shapeless.Witness is an object that contains both type information and associated value, and also can be summoned from either.

import shapeless.Witness
import shapeless.syntax.singleton._
import shapeless.test.illTyped // test string for causing type-errors when compiled

// --- Type aliases ---
val w = 42.witness
type Answ1 = w.T // that is your Int(42) singleton type
type Answ2 = Witness.`42`.T // same, but without extra variable
implicitly[Answ1 =:= Answ2] // compiles, types are the same

// --- Value definitions ---
val a: Answ1 = 42 // compiles, value OK, and no need to `narrow`
illTyped { "val b: Answ1 = 43" } // would not compile
val c: Witness.`43`.T = 43 // that syntax is OK here too

// --- Summoning values ---
val answ = Witness[Answ1].value // will not compile for non-singleton
def genericSingletonMethod[A](implicit W: Witness.Aux[A]) = s"Summoning ${W.value}"
assert { genericSingletonMethod[Answ1] == "Summoning 42" }
assert { genericSingletonMethod[Witness.`"string"`.T] == "Summoning string" }