[Haskell-cafe] Question about abstraction

2 Jul 2008


      Dear list,

I have I question about the following code I was playing with:
(you can past the following right into your editor)

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import Data.Foldable       (Foldable, foldMap)
import Data.Monoid         (mempty, mappend)
import Data.Traversable    (Traversable, traverse)
import Control.Applicative (pure, (<$>), (<*>))

-- I was playing with the following tree-like datastructure (my plan
-- is to make some kind of kd-tree but that's not important now):

data T a = L | N C2 a (T a) (T a)
                      (T a) (T a)

type C2 = (Float, Float)

-- A fold always comes in handy:

foldT :: b -> (C2 -> a -> b -> b
                       -> b -> b -> b) -> T a -> b
foldT e _ L = e
foldT e n (N c x tl tr
                 bl br) = n c x (foldT e n tl) (foldT e n tr)
                                (foldT e n bl) (foldT e n br)

instance Functor T where
    fmap f = foldT L (\p -> N p . f)

-- Now I defined the following instances:

instance Foldable T where
    foldMap f = foldT mempty $ \_ x tl tr
                                    bl br -> f x `mappend` tl `mappend` tr
                                                 `mappend` bl `mappend` br

instance Traversable T where
    traverse f = foldT (pure L) $ \p x tl tr
                                       bl br -> N p <$> f x <*> tl <*> tr
                                                            <*> bl <*> br

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-- If you look at the previous two functions you see a similar pattern:
-- they both combine an initial value:  'f x'  and  'N p <$> f x'  respectively
-- with the childs using a combining function:  'mappend'  and  '<*>'
respectively.

-- My question is: can I abstract from that?

-- It looks like I can using a function like:

combineWith :: b -> (b -> a -> b) -> a -> a
                                  -> a -> a -> b
n `combineWith` f = \tl tr
                     bl br -> n `f` tl `f` tr
                                `f` bl `f` br

-- Now 'foldMap' becomes:

instance Foldable T where
    foldMap f = foldT mempty $ \_ x -> f x `combineWith` mappend

-- But 'traverse' won't typecheck:

instance Traversable T where
    traverse f = foldT (pure L) $ \p x -> (N p <$> f x) `combineWith` (<*>)

-- Is it possible to make 'combineWith' more general so that the
-- previous typechecks (maybe using arbitrary-rank polymorphism but I
-- don't see how)?

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Thanks,

Bas van Dijk