Contents
How is the data maybe declared in Haskell?
The Haskell standard data type Maybe is typically declared as: data Maybe a = Just a | Nothing What this means is that the type Maybe has one type variable, represented by the a and two constructors Just and Nothing. (Note that Haskell requires type names and constructor names to begin with an uppercase letter).
What do the square brackets mean in Haskell?
The square brackets denote a list. So we read that as it being a list of characters. Unlike lists, each tuple length has its own type. So the expression of (True, ‘a’) has a type of (Bool, Char), whereas an expression such as (‘a’,’b’,’c’) would have the type of (Char, Char, Char). 4 == 5 will always return False, so its type is Bool .
How do you introduce a type in Haskell?
The other two ways one may introduce types to Haskell programs are via the type and newtype statements. type introduces a synonym for a type and uses the same data constructors. newtype introduces a renaming of a type and requires you to provide new constructors.
What are the types of functions in Haskell?
All standard Haskell types except for IO (the type for dealing with input and output) and functions are a part of the Eq typeclass. The elem function has a type of (Eq a) => a -> [a] -> Bool because it uses == over a list to check whether some value we’re looking for is in it.
How is recursion introduced in a Haskell program?
Here, one of the constructors, Branch of Tree takes two trees as parameters to the constructor, while Leaf takes a value of type a. This type of recursion is a very common pattern in Haskell. The other two ways one may introduce types to Haskell programs are via the type and newtype statements.
What does parametric polymorphism mean in Haskell programming?
Haskell’s particular brand of polymorphism is known as parametric polymorphism. Essentially, this means that polymorphic functions must work uniformly for any input type. This turns out to have some interesting implications for both programmers and users of polymorphic functions.