[Haskell-cafe] self-referential data

[Brent Yorgey]

On Sat, Aug 09, 2008 at 05:09:06PM -0500, brian wrote:
> >From https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bencoding , I
> think I should code
> 
> data BValue = BString     String
>             | BInteger    Integer
>             | BList       [BValue]
>             | BDictionary (M.Map BString BValue)
> 
> but: Not in scope: type constructor or class `BString'
> 
> The implementations I've found just implemented BDictionary's map key
> as String, but I think that's kind of wrong.

The problem is that BString is not a type, it is a data constructor.
You could use M.Map BValue BValue, but of course that's probably not
what you want either.  What's wrong with just using 'String' as the
Map key?

-Brent