Monadic version of functions for containers (adjustM, updateWithKeyM, etc)

[Heinrich Apfelmus]

Johan Tibell wrote:
> Thomas DuBuisson wrote:
>>
>> Is there a reason not to have monadic version of the functions in
>> containers? I've a need for functions of type:
> 
> Ack! Haskell needs effect polymorphism. The API already has 150
> functions. How many more do we need to add if we want to cover all the
> monadic versions?

I think this problem should be solved by making the API more 
general/flexible, not by adding more specialized versions. For instance, 
the function

    focus :: k -> Map k a -> (Maybe a, Maybe a -> Map k a)

that returns the element together with its context ("map with a hole 
where the element was") can express all the  insert, update  etc. 
functions as well as their monadic versions.

You can also use it for  lookup , though that has a performance cost 
since the context is generated and then discarded. Of course, there 
ought to be a optimization pass that can catch these situations with a 
few hints and eliminate the superfluous work.


Regards,
Heinrich Apfelmus

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