[Haskell-beginners] map type explanation

[Bruno Barbier]

Hi Lawrence,

Lawrence Bottorff <borgauf at gmail.com> writes:

> Why is it not just
>
> a -> b -> [a] -> [b]
>
> again, why the parentheses?

In Haskell, (->) is a binary operator and is right associative. If you write:

   a -> b -> [a] -> [b]

it implicitly means:

   a -> (b -> ([a] -> [b]))

So here, you need explicit parenthesis:

   (a -> b) -> [a] -> [b]

to mean:
   (a -> b) -> ([a] -> [b])

It's more about parsing binary operators than about types.

Does it help ?

Bruno

> On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 4:10 PM Ut Primum <utprimum at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> a -> b  is the type of a function taking arguments of a generic type (we
>> call it a) and returning results of another type, that we call b.
>>
>> So
>> (a -> b ) -> [a] -> [b]
>> Means that you have a first argument that is a function (a-> b),  a second
>> argument that is a list of elements of the same type of the function input,
>> and that the returned element is a list of things of the type of the output
>> of the function.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Ut
>>
>> Il ven 18 dic 2020, 23:02 Lawrence Bottorff <borgauf at gmail.com> ha
>> scritto:
>>
>>> Thank you, but why in
>>>
>>> map :: (a -> b) -> [a] -> [b]
>>>
>>> are there parentheses around a -> b ? In general, what is the currying
>>> aspect of this?
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 12:43 PM David McBride <toad3k at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> They are not parameters, they are the types of the parameters.
>>>>
>>>> In this case a can really be anything, Int, Char, whatever, so long as
>>>> the function takes a single argument of that type and the list that is
>>>> given has elements of that same type.
>>>> It is the same for b, it doesn't matter what b ends up being, so long as
>>>> when you call that function the function's return value is compatible with
>>>> the element type of the list that you intended to return from the entire
>>>> statement.
>>>>
>>>> You can mess with it yourself in ghci to see how type inference works.
>>>>
>>>> >:t show
>>>> :show :: Show a => a -> String
>>>> >:t map show
>>>> map show :: Show a => [a] -> [String]
>>>> > :t flip map [1::Int]
>>>> > flip map [1::Int] :: (Int -> b) -> [b]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 1:31 PM Lawrence Bottorff <borgauf at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I'm looking at this
>>>>>
>>>>> ghci> :type map
>>>>> map :: (a -> b) -> [a] -> [b]
>>>>>
>>>>> and wondering what the (a -> b) part is about. map takes a function
>>>>> and applies it to an incoming list. Good. Understood. I'm guessing that the
>>>>> whole Haskell type declaration idea is based on currying, and I do
>>>>> understand how the (a -> b) part "takes" an incoming list, [a] and
>>>>> produces the [b] output. Also, I don't understand a and b very well
>>>>> either. Typically, a is just a generic variable, then b is another
>>>>> generic variable not necessarily the same as a. But how are they being
>>>>> used in this type declaration?
>>>>>
>>>>> LB
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