[Haskell-cafe] Slightly Offtopic in Part

[Dan Licata]

Out of context (am I missing some earlier part of this thread?) I'm not
entirely sure what you mean.

Are you're talking about the disjunction elim rule in intuitionistic
natural deduction:

Gamma |- A + B   Gamma, A |- C   Gamma, B |- C
----------------------------------------------
             Gamma |- C

If so, this is just 'case'.  If you annotate the rule with proof terms
(programs in the simply-typed lambda-calculus), you get the typing rule
for case:

Gamma |- e : A + B   
Gamma, x1 : A |- e1 : C   
Gamma, x2 : B |- e2 : C
------------------------------------------------------
Gamma |- case e of { Inl x1 -> e1 ; Inr x2 -> e2 } : C

I.e., when pattern matching on the following type

data Or a b = 
   Inl a
 | Inr b

(this type is isomorphic to Either in the Prelude)

you have two cases to consider, one where you have an 'a' and the other
where you have a 'b'.  

E.g., let's prove a simple theorem:

comm :: Or a b -> Or b a
comm x = case x of 
           Inl x1 -> Inr x1
	   Inr x2 -> Inl x2

Does that help?
-Dan

On Feb09, PR Stanley wrote:
> Hi folks
> The disjunction elimination rule:
> I've been trying to make sense of it and I think I have had some 
> success; however, it's far from adequate. I wonder, is there a way of 
> demonstrating it in Haskell? A code frag with a jargon-free 
> explanation would be mucho appreciated.
> Cheers, Paul
> 
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