[Haskell-cafe] extensible data types in Haskell?

[David Walker]

Hi all,

SML conveniently contains the type "exn" which is an instance of an
"extensible data type".  In other words, unlike normal data types that
are "closed" (can't admit new constructors once defined), SML's exn
type is "open," allowing programmers to keep adding new alternatives
as often as they choose.  Like normal datatypes, the elimination form
for an extensible data type is a case statement (or match function).

Friends have told me that Haskell doesn't have extensible data types.
However, it seems fairly straightforward to code them up using type
classes....though the solution I'm thinking of has a little bit of
boilerplate I'd like to scrap (you have to define a new type
declaration *and* an instance of a type class with a "match" method)
and matching occurs through a string comparison (which can lead to
silly programmer errors if there is accidentally a typo in the
string).

Anyway, it's possible with some thought I could come up with a better
solution, but before worrying about it, I figured I'd ask if anybody
else already has a package that does this.  It seems like a pretty
natural feature to want to have.

Thanks in advance,
Dave