[Haskell-cafe] if-then without -else?

[Paul]

If-without-else implies “empty-else”. It’s possible in monad context in “return ()” form. There are “when”, “unless” functions already. But in pure context “empty-else” can not imply empty result for “else” branch (what value should be used in “else” branch?). Empty-if exists in most languages in statements, i.e. under “IO a”, but not in expressions, so “a ? x : y” in C/C++, “x if a else y” in Python needs “else” branch. Non-exhaustive case is like “if ... then ... else undefined” IMHO.



From: Olga Ershova
Sent: 9 июля 2018 г. 21:55
To: Johannes Waldmann
Cc: Haskell Cafe
Subject: Re: [Haskell-cafe] if-then without -else?

In hindsight, maybe non-exhaustive case expression should be errors, not warnings. But then adding new constructor to the type could break existing code in multiple places, even if constructor is never used. Not everybody ready to pay this price.

For the "if" expressions, condition type is always Bool with two constructors, so enforcing totality looks like natural choice here.

On Mon, Jul 9, 2018 at 2:40 PM Johannes Waldmann <johannes.waldmann at htwk-leipzig.de> wrote:
> Therefore (if False then a) would give an exception.

Yes. And the question is, why is possible to write
this program using "case" but not with "if".

For the first part (allow incomplete sets of patterns in "case"):

No matter how hard we try, Haskell is not a total language -
there'll always be programs that denote bottom,
by raising exceptions (e.g., from incomplete patterns),
or by non-termination - which cannot be prohibited statically
if we want both the language to be Turing complete,
and type inference to be decidable.

Cf. Agda, which is total, and therefore
has a coverage checker (for patterns)
as well as a termination checker.

But then the second part (do not allow incomplete "if")
appears to be an inconsistency in the design.

Mind you - I don't propose to change this.
The question is just about justification for the design.

Are there applications for an incomplete "if"?
I can imagine something like assertions,
as in "f x = if some-precondition x then some-computation x"
Of course, that's only helpful if the exception
contains source information.

- J.W.
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