[Haskell-cafe] Generalized null / zero

[Alvaro J. Genial]

1. Is there a more general version of `null`? (e.g. for a Monad, Functor,
Applicative, Traversable or the like.) The closest I can come up with is,
in decreasing clunkiness:

    zero :: (MonadPlus m, Eq (m a)) => m a -> Bool
    zero = m == mzero

    zero :: (Alternative f, Eq (f a)) => f a -> Bool
    zero = m == empty

    zero :: (Monoid m, Eq m) => m -> Bool
    zero = m == mempty

Though requiring Eq seems ugly and unnecessary, in theory.

2. In that vein, is there an existing function for "a value or a default if
it's zero"? E.g.:

    orElse :: (Monoid m) => m -> m -> m
    a `orElse` b = if zero a then b else a

Thank you,

Alvaro
http://alva.ro
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