[Haskell-cafe] beginner question re example in Hutton's "Programming in Haskell"

[David Cabana]

I have been trying to work through Graham Hutton's "Programming in  
Haskell", but have hit something of a snag in chapter 8.4. Hutton  
presents some sample code which I am trying to run, with no luck so  
far. Here is the code as I constructed it by gathering snippets  
presented across three pages.
<code>
module Main where

-- as per Hutton page 75
type Parser a = String -> [(a, String)]

-- page 75
return :: a -> Parser a
return v = \inp -> [(v,inp)]

-- page 76
failure :: Parser a
failure = \inp -> [ ]

item :: Parser Char
item = \inp -> case inp of
                 [ ] -> [ ]
                 (x:xs)-> [(x,xs)]

parse :: Parser a -> String -> [(a,String)]
parse p inp = p inp

-- page 77
p :: Parser (Char, Char)
p = do x <- item
             item
             y <- item
             return (x,y)
</code>

When I tried to load this code, I got this error message:

     Ambiguous occurrence `return'
     It could refer to either `return', defined at /Users/joe/haskell/ 
parse2.hs:8:0
		          or `return', imported from Prelude

OK. My reasoning was that Hutton took the trouble to define return,  
so I decided to use the local definition instead of the one in the  
Prelude. I changed the last line from "return (x,y)" to "Main.return  
(x,y)". The new error message is worse:

     Couldn't match expected type `Char'
	   against inferred type `[(Char, String)]'
     In the expression: x
     In the first argument of `return', namely `(x, y)'
     In the expression: return (x, y)</blockquote>

Hutton provided explicit type signatures, so I did not expect type  
issues.

I decided to take another approach. The book has a website that lists  
errata and provides code listings. The code for chapter eight is at  
http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gmh/Parsing.lhs

When I read Hutton's code, I noticed that he begins by importing  
Monad. The code I list above is from chapter 8, pages 75-77 of the  
book. Monads have not yet been mentioned. The book's index shows that  
monads aren't mentioned till page 113, in chapter 10. I also notice  
that in his code, Hutton makes repeated use of a symbol P whose  
meaning I do not know.

What do I have to do to make this code work?

I know I can use Hutton's code from the website, but I expected the  
code presented in the book to work, or the code on the website to  
restrict itself to what has been discussed in the book. Am I missing  
something here?

Thanks,
David Cabana