2015 002 Addition of Either module + explicit openable constrcutor module

This project started originally as John Reppy's Either module added as an smlpkg package. Based on the original BasisLibrary 2015-002 submission, but packaged to be accessible to the wider smlpkg ecosystem. Subsequently, the openable constructor addition was made for better ergonomics.

Openable constructor

It's nice to be able to use Either's constructors (INR and INL) without prefixing, just like one can use SOME and NONE in the Basis library.

The problem with openining Either as-is is that there are several functions in there that shadow standard Basis functions like map and app.

I wanted to be able to open the constructors only, while leaving the other functions fully-prefixed. The solution I came up with is to define a separate signature EITHER_CONS, which exposes only the constructors, and subsequently both open it in the implementation and expose it as a member struct. So now you can:

> val prefixed_val = Either.INR 3;
val prefixed_val = INR 3: ('a, int) Either.either

> open Either.Cons;
datatype ('a, 'b) either = INL of 'a | INR of 'b

> val non_prefixed_val = INR 3;
val non_prefixed_val = INR 3: ('a, int) either

> prefixed_val = non_prefixed_val;
val it = true: bool

How to include this in your sml project

1. Place the package in your sml.pkg file;

require {
  github.com/pzel/sml-either 0.0.1
}

2. Sync with upstream

smlpkg sync

3. If everything goes well, you'll have either.mlb in the lib hierarchy:

$ find lib/ | grep either.mlb
lib/github.com/pzel/sml-either/either.mlb

TODO:

• Run tests & build under mlton
• Run tests & build under poly(mlb)
• Set up CI