Just noticed this difference in the definition of fromMaybe in two different places: http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/libraries/base-4.2.0.0/src/Data-Maybe.html#fromMaybe -- | The 'fromMaybe' function takes a default value and and 'Maybe' -- value.  If the 'Maybe' is 'Nothing', it returns the default values; -- otherwise, it returns the value contained in the 'Maybe'. fromMaybe     :: a -> Maybe a -> a fromMaybe d x = case x of {Nothing -> d;Just v  -> v} and http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/Hierarchical_libraries/Maybe fromMaybe :: a -> Maybe a -> a fromMaybe z = maybe z id Michael