[Haskell-cafe] Writing guards shorthand

[Jules Bean]

Neil Mitchell wrote:
> Hi
>
> isBool x = isLT x || isGT x
> isNum x = not $ isBool x
>
> isLT and isGT can be derived automatically using derve [1], with the
> Is class (or DrIFT if you want).


You can also get a long way with GHC's built in derivations for Eq, Enum 
and Show.

If an Enum instance is possible then you can write something like

isBool = (`elem` [LT .. GT])
isNum = (`elem` [Minus .. Mul])

If enum is not possible, because some of the constructors are not 
nullary, then there is the following cute/ugly hack if you instead 
derive Show:

constrName = takeWhile (/=' ') . show

and you can say

isBool x = constrName x `elem` ["LT","GT"]
isNum x = constrName x `elem` ["Minus","Plus","Mul"]



What this leads us towards is that it might be rather nice (perhaps even 
nice enough to build into a compiler) to be able to derive, for each 
type with multiple constructors, a type 'which is the enumeration of the 
constructors'. I.e. a type with the same constructors (up to some 
namespace fix like prepending with C) but all nullary:

data Atom = Null | MyInt Int | MyString String

derives...

data AtomCons = CNull | CMyInt | CMyString deriving (Ord,Eq,Enum,Show)

and a function

constr :: Atom -> AtomCons

Jules