Delete data Maybe Dir = Just Dir | Nothing as it is unnecessary "Maybe a" is defined already for any type "a" (and doesn't make sense, Dir occuring before the = sign would indicate that it is a type variable, but it is uppercase), and also change data Dir = Left | Right | Up | Down data Piece = Vertical | Horizontal | CodeA | CodeB to data Dir = Left | Right | Up | Down deriving Eq data Piece = Vertical | Horizontal | CodeA | CodeB deriving Eq Equality isn't defined by default on user-defined datatypes, so that you can add your own definition. In this case your type is pretty simple, so you can use the derived instance of Eq, so that (==) and (/=) get defined for Dir and Piece. You should also add the line import Prelude hiding (Left, Right) as these are the names of the data constructors for the Either type, and you will get ambiguity errors if you don't rename them or hide the ones in the Prelude. Lastly, you should probably rename your 'fst' to 'frst' or some such, so that it doesn't overlap with the Prelude function of the same name. hope this helps, - Cale On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 20:36:55 +0000, pablo daniel rey wrote:

hello i'm new to haskell so i'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but i'm having problems with some basic code. the code :

data Maybe Dir = Just Dir | Nothing data Dir = Left | Right | Up | Down data Piece = Vertical | Horizontal | CodeA | CodeB

flow = [(Horizontal, Left, Left), (Horizontal, Right, Right), (Vertical, Down, Down), (Vertical, Up, Up), ................ etc ]

fst :: (a,b,c) -> a fst (x,y,z) = x

scnd :: (a,b,c) -> b scnd (x,y,z) = y

third :: (a,b,c) -> c third (x,y,z) = z

element :: [(Piece, Dir, Dir)] -> Maybe Dir element [] = Nothing element xs = Just (third (head xs))

chgDir :: Piece -> Dir -> Maybe Dir chgDir p d = element (filter (\x -> p == (fst x)) (filter (\x -> d == (scnd x)) flow))

the error i get :

Instances of (Eq Dir, Eq Piece) required for definition of chgDir

i don't know what's happening. help!!! thanks in advance _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell