[Haskell-cafe] Do expression definition

[Ben Millwood]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 8:21 AM, Alexander Kotelnikov <sacha at myxomop.com> wrote:
> And, also, would it make any difference if
>
>
> do {p <- e; stmts}      =       let ok p = do {stmts}
>    ok _ = fail "..."
>  in e >>= ok
>
> is redefined as "e >>= (\p -> do {stmts})"?

This is the magic that allows pattern-match failure in a do expression
to return a normal result. Notice that "fail" and not "error" is
called - each Monad has its own fail method, so that for example:

uncons :: [a] -> Maybe (a, [a])
uncons xs = do { (x:xs) <- return xs; return (x, xs) }

evaluates to Nothing rather than causing an exception when xs is empty.

That this implementation detail ends up in the Monad class is regarded
by many as untidy, though.