I was recently surprised to discover that the maximum and maximumBy
functions always return the *last* maximum, while minimum and minimumBy
return the *first* minimum in the list. The following GHCi session
demonstrates this:
$ ghci
GHCi, version 7.2.1: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ :? for help
Loading package ghc-prim ... linking ... done.
Loading package integer-gmp ... linking ... done.
Loading package base ... linking ... done.
Loading package ffi-1.0 ... linking ... done.
Prelude> :module +Data.List Data.Ord
Prelude Data.List Data.Ord> let list = [(1, 'B'), (1, 'A')]
Prelude Data.List Data.Ord> maximumBy (comparing fst) list
(1,'A')
Prelude Data.List Data.Ord> minimumBy (comparing fst) list
(1,'B')
I would normally consider this kind of gratuitous asymmetry a bug,
but seeing that these functions' implementations have been specified in
the Haskell 98 Library Report, I guess they are now a permanent feature
of the language. Can anybody explain the reason for this behaviour?
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