How to implement Data.Map.insertList*?

[Mirko Rahn]

The old FiniteMap module contains the addListToFM* functions that are 
missing in Data.Map. But how to implement it?

First answer:

insertList_foldl :: Ord k => [(k,a)] -> Map.Map k a -> Map.Map k a
insertList_foldl = flip (foldl ins) where fluc = flip . uncurry
					  ins  = fluc Map.insert

Second answer:

insertList_union :: Ord k => [(k,a)] -> Map.Map k a -> Map.Map k a
insertList_union kas = Map.union (Map.fromList kas)

Situation and Problem:

We already have a map of size n and want to insert a list with m 
elements. Then we look at the documentation and one gets:

* For the first answer we do need O(sum_{i=0}^{m-1}log(n+i)) = 
O(log((m+n)!/n!)) operations.
* For the sencond answer we do need O(m*log(m))+O(n+m) = O(m*log(m)+n+m) 
operations.

These terms are hard to compare but a plot shows that insertList_foldl 
should be faster than insertList_union.

But a testprogram shows that insertList_union is faster (and needs less 
memory) whatever the sizes of n and m are.

So my questions are:

Why are the insertList* functions missing?
How would the library implementors implement insertList* and why?

thanks,

-- 
-- Mirko Rahn -- Tel +49-721 608 7504 --
--- http://liinwww.ira.uka.de/~rahn/ ---