We don't try to provide every single function that could map to any monoid in Data.Monoid in Data.Foldable. 

e.g. by the same token we also don't have versions that take a function and then compute a sum or product.

Global namespace in a library like base is a fairly precious resource, because any name you take is taken from all users who use unqualified imports.

The assumption is rather implicit that if you need something more exotic you can roll it yourself from the parts available to you.

-Edward

On Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 2:35 PM, David Feuer <david.feuer@gmail.com> wrote:
Er, actually, no. This is not quite right.

asum :: (Foldable t, Alternative f) => t (f a) -> f a
firstAlt :: (Foldable t, Alternative f) => (a -> f b) -> t a -> f b

If the container is a Functor, asum is good enough. In other cases, it doesn't help any.

On Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 2:27 PM, David Feuer <david.feuer@gmail.com> wrote:
Ah, yes, it's lovely how I can look at a function one day and then forget it exists the very next. Carry on!

On Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 2:22 PM, Edward Kmett <ekmett@gmail.com> wrote:
Um, msum / asum?

On Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 2:06 PM, David Feuer <david.feuer@gmail.com> wrote:
We've had First and Last in Data.Monoid for some time, and we now have Alt as well. Unfortunately, we don't have nice convenient functions for using them, the way we have sum and product to use Sum and Product. So we're stuck with funny-looking constructions like listToMaybe . mapMaybe f for lists, and nothing good for other containers.

My thought (the names firstAlt and lastAlt would absolutely have to be changed to accommodate non-catch Alternatives, but I'm not inspired at present):

firstAlt, lastAlt :: (Foldable f, Alternative m) => (a -> m b) -> f a -> m b

firstAlt f = getAlt #. foldMap (Alt #. f)

lastAlt f = getAlt #. getDual #. foldMap (Dual #. Alt #. f)

where
(#.) :: Coercible b c => (b -> c) -> (a -> b) -> (a -> c)
f #. g = coerce g

This specializes to Maybe very nicely:

firstMaybe :: Foldable f => (a -> Maybe b) -> f a -> Maybe b
firstMaybe = firstAlt

lastMaybe :: Foldable f => (a -> Maybe b) -> f a -> Maybe b
lastMaybe = lastAlt


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