Kevin Jardine wrote:
But as I said, that is just an example. I keep wanting to apply the
usual list tools but find that they do not work inside a monad. I find
myself wishing that f (m [a]) just automatically returned m f([a])
Are you looking for these?
import Data.Traversable as T
T.sequence :: (T.Traversable t, Monad m) => t (m a) -> m (t a)
T.mapM :: (T.Traversable t, Monad m) => (a -> m b) -> t a -> m (t b)
-- N.B. T.mapM ~ (T.sequence . fmap)
without me needing to do anything but I expect that there are reasons
why that is not a good idea.
Not all functors can be distributed over arbitrary monads, so "not a
good idea" is more like "not always possible" or "here be dragons"
(fluffy, intriguing, and pretty dragons to be sure; but probably deeper
than the answer you were looking for).
In addition to Applicative, the Traversable and Foldable classes should
be key tools in your toolbox. They take a number of functions typically
restricted to lists and generalize them to different functors, often
with Applicatives or Monads involved. The Typeclassopedia should have
more on them.
--
Live well,
~wren
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