Suggestion for bang patterns documentation

[Simon Peyton-Jones]

good idea. done

| -----Original Message-----
| From: glasgow-haskell-users-bounces at haskell.org [mailto:glasgow-haskell-users-
| bounces at haskell.org] On Behalf Of Brian Bloniarz
| Sent: 27 February 2009 03:56
| To: glasgow-haskell-users at haskell.org
| Subject: Suggestion for bang patterns documentation
|
|
| I got confused by the GHC documentation recently, I was wondering how
| it could be improved. From:
| http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/users_guide/bang-patterns.html
|
| > A bang only really has an effect if it precedes a variable or wild-card pattern:
| > f3 !(x,y) = [x,y]
| > f4 (x,y)  = [x,y]
| > Here, f3 and f4 are identical; putting a bang before a pattern that
| > forces evaluation anyway does nothing.
|
| The first sentence is true, but only in settings where the pattern is being
| evaluated eagerly -- the bang in:
| > f3 a = let !(x,y) = a in [1,x,y]
| > f4 a = let (x,y) = a in [1,x,y]
| has an effect.
|
| The first time I read this, I took the first sentence to be a unqualified truth
| and ended up thinking that !(x,y) was equivalent to (x,y) everywhere. Stuff
| that comes later actually clarifies this, but I missed it.
|
| What about making the distinction clear upfront? Something like:
| > A bang in an eager pattern match only really has an effect if it precedes a
| variable
| > or wild-card pattern:
| > f3 !(x,y) = [x,y]
| > f4 (x,y)  = [x,y]
| > Because f4 _|_ will force the evaluation of the pattern match anyway, f3 and f4
| > are identical; the bang does nothing.
|
| It also might be a good idea to immediately follow this with the let/where usage:
|
| > A bang can also preceed a let/where binding to make the pattern match strict. For
| example:
| > let ![x,y] = e in b
| > is a strict pattern...
| (in the existing docs, let comes a bit later):
|
| Just a thought. Hopefully someone can come up with a better way of
| wording what I'm getting at.
|
| Thanks,
| -Brian
|
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