Hi, I often create structures like: data MyData = MyData { foo :: ..., bar :: ..., .... } and most of the time i do one of two things: 1) read values from the structure, as in: let x = (foo myData) in ... 2) update values in the structure, as in: let myData' = myData { foo = (foo myData)+1 } Only very rarely (usually only during intializization) do I actually put values into the structure that *don't* depend on their previous value. I end up with expresions like: ... myData { foo = (foo myData) + 1 ; bar = (bar myData) ++ "bar" ; ick = (ick myData) ! n ; ... } I was wondering if there existed any sort of "update" syntax. Obviously not real update, but enough to get rid of the "(foo myData)" parts of my epxression which really serve to just clutter up with expression. Perhaps something like: ... myData { foo <- (+1) ; bar <- (++"bar") ; ick <- (!n) ; ... } or the like, where "x { ... y <- e ... } is translated to "x { ... y = e (y x) ... }" (i only use "<-" because that seems to be the default extension symbol, i guess because we don't want to trample symbols people might actually use.) Anyway, does such a thing exist, and, if not, is there any chance it could exist, or is it just syntactic salt to too many people? :) - Hal -- Hal Daume III "Computer science is no more about computers | hdaume@isi.edu than astronomy is about telescopes." -Dijkstra | www.isi.edu/~hdaume