select and selectSplit

Neil Mitchell ndmitchell at gmail.com
Fri Feb 15 05:02:18 EST 2008


Hi

>  select :: [a] -> [(a,[a])]
>  selectSplit :: [a] -> [([a],a,[a])]

Not entirely certain about the names, but the functions are good.
Perhaps the reason I am dubious is the select/poll conventions. Is
there not some word in combinatorics for extracting any single element
out of a set? It sounds like Maths should have beaten us to this
naming, as it typically does for Data.List. I have selectSplit defined
in a few of my projects, and have called it "allItems" on at least one
occasion - which is an even worse name.

(+0.8) as it currently stands, but (+1) if it gets a better (more Mathsy) name.

I don't support the flipping of the select arguments, ever, as
currently it returns a very logical pair of ("this item","everything
else") - flipping the order goes against the intution of the order of
cons.

Thanks

Neil


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