You can implement a structure which hides a max length and a length inside it, whose record accessors are not exported.

Also, rather than thinking of insert and remove as operations *inside* the structure, think of them separately. Define just the data structure first, and then define the operations afterwards. This separates the interface and implementation, allowing you to change the structure without changing the API.

On 14 December 2015 at 01:45, martin <martin.drautzburg@web.de> wrote:
Hello all,

here is a problem where I did not manage to find a suitable abstraction. The main idea goes like this:

a List (and many other containers) can be seen as something containing "stuff". There is a function (:) that
unconditionally adds an element to the container and returns a new container

Now suppose the container has the possiblility to refuse having another element added to it, e.g. because it has only
limited "space". In that case the corresponding function would have a signature of insert :: a -> C a -> Maybe (C a). If
an item can successfully be added, then the returned container will be less space avaiable.

I'd like stuff and space to be symmetrical (maybe there lies the first flaw, because I can enumerate the elements, but I
cannot enumerate the space). A symmetry like electrones and holes.

I started like this

data C a = C {
            insert :: a -> Maybe (C a),
            remove :: Maybe (a, C a)
        }

but I could not implement anything sensible on top of this.

I'd be happy to hear any comments on this, including loud thinking and random ramblings.

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--
Sumit Sahrawat,

Junior - Mathematics and Computing,
Indian Institute of Technology - BHU,
Varanasi, India