C.M.Brown wrote:
Hi Miguel,
See, in let or where constructs you don't have a choice; you can't do
different things depending on whether some value is Just x or
Nothing. Therefore, there is no need to perform pattern matching
strictly.
This is not entirely true. This is actually one of those niches in Haskell
where the left to right is not quite the same as right to left. A let can be
converted to a where
but the other way round may require a case introduction.
So just like you can define:
f (Just x) = x
f Nothing = error "Nothing"
You can also define:
f x = g x
where
g (Just x) = x
g Nothing = error "Nothing"
g is strict in its first argument. Declared in a let it would look like:
f x = let g x = case x of
(Just y) -> y
Nothing -> error "Nothing" in g x
Again, g must be strict in its first argument.
or
f x = let
g (Just x) = x
g Nothing = error "Nothing"
in g x
also works perfectly fine. The (Just x) and Nothing are not
let-patterns, they are function-definition-patterns, and of course are
strict since they make a decision.
Isaac
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