Record syntax clarification

Question

OK, so here's an unusual one. Every time you see an example of Haskell's record syntax, it always looks like

Sphere {center = 0, radius = 2}

or similar. My question is... are those curly brackets actually part of the record syntax? Or are they actually shorthand for layout? In other words, can you actually write something like

Sphere
  center = 0
  radius = 2

and have it work?

I doubt it would be very useful to do this - it takes up a lot of visual space - but I'm just curious as to whether this is syntactically valid or not.

Answer 1

Layout is an alternative to explicit braces and semicolons.

Record syntax uses explicit braces and commas.

So no, you can't use layout as part of record syntax.

Haskell Report 2010 §2.7 Layout:

Haskell permits the omission of the braces and semicolons used in several grammar productions, by using layout to convey the same information.