Proposal #1464: add dropPrefix to Data.List

Hi all, I seem to have a copy of this function in everything I write sooner or later, so I'd like to propose its addition to Data.List. It strips a prefix from a list and, if successful, returns the tail. I often use it with pattern guards: foo :: String -> IO () foo x | Just y <- dropPrefix "foo=" = putStrLn ("foo is " ++ show y) foo _ = putStrLn "Unknown" but you can of course achieve the same by using case etc. The definition is: dropPrefix :: Eq a => [a] -> [a] -> Maybe [a] dropPrefix [] ys = Just ys dropPrefix (x:xs) (y:ys) | x == y = dropPrefix xs ys dropPrefix _ _ = Nothing Let's try 11 July for a discussion deadline. Thanks Ian