Optimise nullary type constructor usagewip/tyconapp-opts

During the compilation of programs GHC very frequently deals with
the `Type` type, which is a synonym of `TYPE 'LiftedRep`. This patch
teaches GHC to avoid expanding the `Type` synonym (and other nullary
type synonyms) during type comparisons, saving a good amount of work.
This optimisation is described in `Note [Comparing nullary type
synonyms]`.

To maximize the impact of this optimisation, we introduce a few
special-cases to reduce `TYPE 'LiftedRep` to `Type`. See
`Note [Prefer Type over TYPE 'LiftedPtrRep]`.

Closes #17958.

Metric Decrease:
   T18698b
   T1969
   T12227
   T12545
   T12707
   T14683
   T3064
   T5631
   T5642
   T9020
   T9630
   T9872a
   T13035
   haddock.Cabal
   haddock.base

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 6 deletions

diff --git a/compiler/GHC/Core/TyCon.hs b/compiler/GHC/Core/TyCon.hs
index 198b66959b..a038fd646c 100644
--- a/compiler/GHC/Core/TyCon.hs
+++ b/compiler/GHC/Core/TyCon.hs
@@ -2327,12 +2327,14 @@ expandSynTyCon_maybe
 -- ^ Expand a type synonym application, if any
 expandSynTyCon_maybe tc tys
   | SynonymTyCon { tyConTyVars = tvs, synTcRhs = rhs, tyConArity = arity } <- tc
-  = case tys `listLengthCmp` arity of
-        GT -> Just (tvs `zip` tys, rhs, drop arity tys)
-        EQ -> Just (tvs `zip` tys, rhs, [])
-        LT -> Nothing
-  | otherwise
-  = Nothing
+  = case tys of
+      [] -> Just ([], rhs, []) -- Avoid a bit of work in the case of nullary synonyms
+      _  -> case tys `listLengthCmp` arity of
+              GT -> Just (tvs `zip` tys, rhs, drop arity tys)
+              EQ -> Just (tvs `zip` tys, rhs, [])
+              LT -> Nothing
+   | otherwise
+   = Nothing
 
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