I'm trying to translate *The Little MLer *into Haskell. I've got this data Shishkebab = Skewer | Onion Shishkebab | Lamb Shishkebab | Tomato Shishkebab deriving Show Then I have this which works veggieKebab :: Shishkebab -> Bool veggieKebab Skewer = True veggieKebab (Onion (shk)) = veggieKebab shk veggieKebab (Tomato (shk)) = veggieKebab shk veggieKebab (Lamb (shk)) = False
veggieKebab (Tomato (Onion (Tomato (Onion Skewer)))) True
but I'm wondering if I could do something like this veggieKebab :: Shishkebab -> Bool veggieKebab Skewer = True veggieKebab (shkb (sk)) | (shkb == Onion) || (shkb == Tomato) = veggieKebab sk | otherwise = False This doesn't work, giving a "Parse error in pattern: shkb". I've been advised that I'm trying to treat what is a data constructor like a variable, but I can't fathom what that means in this case. What I'm trying to leverage is what I've learned from dealing with lists and recursion through the consed list. So if effect I'm trying to recurse through a consed Shishkebab object. It works in the first case, but hyow could I do this in this more generic way like the second try does? LB