[Haskell-beginners] Help with RWH exercises wanted

[Daniel Fischer]

Am Donnerstag, 12. Februar 2009 16:19 schrieb Alan Cameron:
> I am baffled by what the correct solution to the exercises in Recursive
> type section of Chapter 3 should be.
> <Quote>
> 1. Write the converse of fromList for the List type: a function that takes
> a List a and generates a [a].

Follow the example of fromList, pattern match on the constructors of the List 
type and specify for each case what to do (there's only one sensible choice)

toList (Cons x xs) = ...
toList Nil = ...

>
> 2. Define a tree type that has only one constructor, like our Java example.
> Instead of the Empty constructor, use the Maybe type to refer to a node's
> children.
> </Quote>

You know the Maybe type:

data Maybe a = Nothing | Just a

, don't you?
If the Java example is what I expect it to be, you just replace the null 
reference with Nothing and a non-null subtree with (Just subtree).

>
> fromList is defined in listADT.hs thus
>
> -- file: ch03/ListADT.hs
> fromList (x:xs) = Cons x (fromList xs)
> fromList []     = Nil
>
> Tree is defined in Tree.hs thus
>
> -- file: ch03/Tree.hs
> data Tree a = Node a (Tree a) (Tree a)
>
>             | Empty
>
>               deriving (Show)
>
> At this point in the book I fail to find any previous examples which might
> lead me to my own solution and there are no "Answers to Exercises" as far
> as I can see. I have a feeling that this might be a fundamental piece of
> knowledge to assist me in further reading of the book.
>
> Alan Cameron

I hope the above hints help you find the solutions yourself, if not, I could 
go into more detail.

Cheers,
Daniel