If you have that many constructors, you probably aren't pattern-matching against the whole thing everywhere. So you could extract the few functions that use the entire type for case analysis into a typeclass, make each constructor its own type, and implement the typeclass:

Instead of:

something :: A -> IO ()
something A1 = putStrLn "hello"
something (A2 _) = putStrLn "world"

Use:

data A1
data A2 = A2 Int

class RelatedConst a of
  something :: a -> IO ()

instance RelatedConst A1 where
  something _ = putStrLn "hello"

instance RelatedConst A2 where
  something _ = putStrLn "world"

Then, each declaration and instance could go in its own file.

If on the other hand, you are using lots of partial case matches everywhere, see if there are commonalities and extract a typeclass for each group


On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 6:29 PM, Adam Flott <adam@adamflott.com> wrote:
I have a sum type with a lot of constructors and I'm not sure how to represent
the type with maintainability in mind. For example,

    data A = A1
           | A2 Int
           | A3 Text Int32 Bool
           | ...
           | A100 Bool

Every inner type is concrete. There are 100+ constructors with no sign of ever
getting reduced.

What technique would you recommend to keep the sum type approach but not having
to define them all in one spot? I'm thinking 1 inner type + 1 function to
construct per file (if that's possible).
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