Boolean "and"

Boolean "or"

Boolean "not"

otherwise is defined as the value True. It helps to make guards more readable. eg.

 f x | x < 0     = ...
     | otherwise = ...

The Maybe type encapsulates an optional value. A value of type Maybe a either contains a value of type a (represented as Just a), or it is empty (represented as Nothing). Using Maybe is a good way to deal with errors or exceptional cases without resorting to drastic measures such as error.

The Maybe type is also a monad. It is a simple kind of error monad, where all errors are represented by Nothing. A richer error monad can be built using the Either type.

The maybe function takes a default value, a function, and a Maybe value. If the Maybe value is Nothing, the function returns the default value. Otherwise, it applies the function to the value inside the Just and returns the result.

Examples

>>> maybe False odd (Just 3)
True

>>> maybe False odd Nothing
False

>>> import Text.Read ( readMaybe )
>>> maybe 0 (*2) (readMaybe "5")
10
>>> maybe 0 (*2) (readMaybe "")
0

>>> maybe "" show (Just 5)
"5"
>>> maybe "" show Nothing
""

The Either type represents values with two possibilities: a value of type Either a b is either Left a or Right b.

The Either type is sometimes used to represent a value which is either correct or an error; by convention, the Left constructor is used to hold an error value and the Right constructor is used to hold a correct value (mnemonic: "right" also means "correct").

Examples

>>> let s = Left "foo" :: Either String Int
>>> s
Left "foo"
>>> let n = Right 3 :: Either String Int
>>> n
Right 3
>>> :type s
s :: Either String Int
>>> :type n
n :: Either String Int

>>> let s = Left "foo" :: Either String Int
>>> let n = Right 3 :: Either String Int
>>> fmap (*2) s
Left "foo"
>>> fmap (*2) n
Right 6

>>> import Data.Char ( digitToInt, isDigit )
>>> :{
    let parseEither :: Char -> Either String Int
        parseEither c
          | isDigit c = Right (digitToInt c)
          | otherwise = Left "parse error"
>>> :}

>>> :{
    let parseMultiple :: Either String Int
        parseMultiple = do
          x <- parseEither '1'
          y <- parseEither '2'
          return (x + y)
>>> :}

>>> parseMultiple
Right 3

>>> :{
    let parseMultiple :: Either String Int
        parseMultiple = do
          x <- parseEither 'm'
          y <- parseEither '2'
          return (x + y)
>>> :}

>>> parseMultiple
Left "parse error"

Case analysis for the Either type. If the value is Left a, apply the first function to a; if it is Right b, apply the second function to b.

Examples

>>> let s = Left "foo" :: Either String Int
>>> let n = Right 3 :: Either String Int
>>> either length (*2) s
3
>>> either length (*2) n
6

The character type Char is an enumeration whose values represent Unicode (or equivalently ISO/IEC 10646) characters (see http://www.unicode.org/ for details). This set extends the ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) character set (the first 256 characters), which is itself an extension of the ASCII character set (the first 128 characters). A character literal in Haskell has type Char.

To convert a Char to or from the corresponding Int value defined by Unicode, use toEnum and fromEnum from the Enum class respectively (or equivalently ord and chr).

A String is a list of characters. String constants in Haskell are values of type String.

Extract the first component of a pair.

Extract the second component of a pair.

curry converts an uncurried function to a curried function.

uncurry converts a curried function to a function on pairs.

The Eq class defines equality (==) and inequality (/=). All the basic datatypes exported by the Prelude are instances of Eq, and Eq may be derived for any datatype whose constituents are also instances of Eq.

Minimal complete definition: either == or /=.

The Ord class is used for totally ordered datatypes.

Instances of Ord can be derived for any user-defined datatype whose constituent types are in Ord. The declared order of the constructors in the data declaration determines the ordering in derived Ord instances. The Ordering datatype allows a single comparison to determine the precise ordering of two objects.

Minimal complete definition: either compare or <=. Using compare can be more efficient for complex types.

Class Enum defines operations on sequentially ordered types.

The enumFrom... methods are used in Haskell's translation of arithmetic sequences.

Instances of Enum may be derived for any enumeration type (types whose constructors have no fields). The nullary constructors are assumed to be numbered left-to-right by fromEnum from 0 through n-1. See Chapter 10 of the Haskell Report for more details.

For any type that is an instance of class Bounded as well as Enum, the following should hold:

• The calls succ maxBound and pred minBound should result in a runtime error.
• fromEnum and toEnum should give a runtime error if the result value is not representable in the result type. For example, toEnum 7 :: Bool is an error.
• enumFrom and enumFromThen should be defined with an implicit bound, thus:

   enumFrom     x   = enumFromTo     x maxBound
   enumFromThen x y = enumFromThenTo x y bound
     where
       bound | fromEnum y >= fromEnum x = maxBound
             | otherwise                = minBound

The Bounded class is used to name the upper and lower limits of a type. Ord is not a superclass of Bounded since types that are not totally ordered may also have upper and lower bounds.

The Bounded class may be derived for any enumeration type; minBound is the first constructor listed in the data declaration and maxBound is the last. Bounded may also be derived for single-constructor datatypes whose constituent types are in Bounded.

A fixed-precision integer type with at least the range [-2^29 .. 2^29-1]. The exact range for a given implementation can be determined by using minBound and maxBound from the Bounded class.

Arbitrary-precision integers.

Single-precision floating point numbers. It is desirable that this type be at least equal in range and precision to the IEEE single-precision type.

Double-precision floating point numbers. It is desirable that this type be at least equal in range and precision to the IEEE double-precision type.

Arbitrary-precision rational numbers, represented as a ratio of two Integer values. A rational number may be constructed using the % operator.

A Word is an unsigned integral type, with the same size as Int.

Basic numeric class.

Integral numbers, supporting integer division.

Fractional numbers, supporting real division.

Trigonometric and hyperbolic functions and related functions.

Extracting components of fractions.

Efficient, machine-independent access to the components of a floating-point number.

the same as flip (-).

Because - is treated specially in the Haskell grammar, (- e) is not a section, but an application of prefix negation. However, (subtract exp) is equivalent to the disallowed section.

gcd x y is the non-negative factor of both x and y of which every common factor of x and y is also a factor; for example gcd 4 2 = 2, gcd (-4) 6 = 2, gcd 0 4 = 4. gcd 0 0 = 0. (That is, the common divisor that is "greatest" in the divisibility preordering.)

Note: Since for signed fixed-width integer types, abs minBound < 0, the result may be negative if one of the arguments is minBound (and necessarily is if the other is 0 or minBound) for such types.

lcm x y is the smallest positive integer that both x and y divide.

raise a number to a non-negative integral power

raise a number to an integral power

general coercion from integral types

general coercion to fractional types

The class of monoids (types with an associative binary operation that has an identity). Instances should satisfy the following laws:

• mappend mempty x = x

• mappend x mempty = x

• mappend x (mappend y z) = mappend (mappend x y) z

• mconcat = foldr mappend mempty

The method names refer to the monoid of lists under concatenation, but there are many other instances.

Some types can be viewed as a monoid in more than one way, e.g. both addition and multiplication on numbers. In such cases we often define newtypes and make those instances of Monoid, e.g. Sum and Product.