[Haskell-beginners] (no subject)

[David McBride]

There are types and constructors.  If "int i = 2"; is a statement, int
is the type, and 2 is the constructor.  You can't put 2 on the left
side and you can't put int on the right side, it wouldn't work.  The
way I like to think of it is that there are types, and then there are
values.  Each value has a type.  Each type can be represented by
different values.  Types are used for type info and values that are
used for code.  When you are declaring a data type it could be
composed of both pieces, and sometimes they are named the same, which
is where your confusion comes from.

data blahtype = blah | blah2 | blah3 int | blah4 Char Int | blahtype

The first blahtype is the type, the others are constructors.  That
last blahtype is a constructor, not a type.  It is completely legal to
have the same name as its type.  The char and int are of course types.

fooFunc :: JSObject -> JSValue -> IO JSValue -- <- all these are types
fooFunc (JSONObject blah) (JSBool bvalue) = return $ JSObject
(JSONObject JSNull) -- <- all these are value related

It is very easy to see when writing functions, but when writing data
types it takes a bit of getting used to because it requires both
aspects at the same time.

data JSValue = ... | JSObject (JSObject JSValue) | ...

The first JSValue is a type.  The first JSObject is a constructor.
The second JSObject is a type and so is the second JSValue.  Put them
together it is a single type "JSObject JSValue".  So that JObject
constructor takes a single type of (JSObject JSValue).

newtype JSObject e = JSONObject [(String, e)]

The first JSObject is again a type.  The e will be replaced with a
type.  JSONObject is a constructor again.  The arguments to JSONObject
are types (String, and whatever e is).  Constructors are essentially
the first word in each possible value.  They are used to pattern match
and to construct new values.

I realize it looks confusing, but it becomes second nature after a little while.

On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 3:22 PM, Jamie F Olson <jamie.f.olson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel Trstenjak <daniel.trstenjak <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Ups, sorry, the data constructor to get a JSValue from a JSObject is
>> named - well - also JSObject.
>>
>> So it's:
>>
>> getJSObj $ JSObject a
>>
>> There's a data type named JSObject:
>>
>> newtype JSObject e = JSONObject { fromJSObject :: [(String, e)] }
>>     deriving (Eq, Ord, Show, Read, Typeable )
>>
>> And there's a data constructor with the name JSObject for the data type
> JSValue:
>>
>> data JSValue
>>     = ...
>>     | JSObject   (JSObject JSValue)
>>     deriving (Show, Read, Eq, Ord, Typeable)
>>
>> Greetings,
>> Daniel
>>
>>
>
> Thanks.  I'd seen that mentioned above, but I'm a bit new to Haskell and didn't
> really understand what that meant.  In fact, I still don't.  Do you have any
> good resources on that?  None of the tutorials/manuals were entirely clear to
> me, nor was the wiki(http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Constructor), which uses
> the same statement as the example of both type and data constructors.
>
>
>
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