[Haskell-cafe] Re: Using Collections: ElemsView and KeysView

[Jean-Philippe Bernardy]

foldr on ElemsView is defined as such:

> foldr f i (ElemsView c) = foldr (f . snd) i c 

so, for example:

> getElementList = toList . ElemViews


When I designed this code (some years ago), I didn't like the "fold" of Map to
have the type:

> fold :: (a -> b -> b) -> b -> Map k a -> b

This just doesn't make sense if we see maps as a collection of (key, value)
pairs.  (Indeed, toList :: Map k a -> [(k, a)])

In order to be consistent, but to provide an easy way to migrate to the new
collection classes I was designing, I provided the ElemViews/KeyViews to
"switch" to the former behaviour on a case by case basis.

This also allows for definining optimized versions of foldr, etc. for each types
that supports "Views", but this was tedious, so I never did it. GHC "RULE"
pragma is probably better suited to the purpose anyway.

As for the lack of documentation, everyone is very welcome to contribute ;)

Cheers,
JP.