[Haskell-beginners] Exporting constructors

[Brent Yorgey]

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 08:17:16AM -0400, Patrick LeBoutillier wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Is it possible to export constructors from a module in a way that they
> can be used for pattern matching but not for creating types?

I would suggest exporting an 'eliminator' function for your data type
(like the functions 'maybe' and 'either'), which essentially allows the
user to do pattern-matching (although not with built-in pattern
matching syntax).  For example, if your data type is

  data Foo = Bar Int
           | Baz Foo Char
           | Quux

then you could export a function

  matchFoo :: Foo -> (Int -> a) -> (Foo -> Char -> a) -> a -> a

which they could use like

  matchFoo f
    (\i    -> ...) -- Bar case
    (\f' c -> ...) -- Baz case
    ...            -- Quux case

-Brent