NAME Types::Algebraic - Algebraic data types in perl SYNOPSIS use Types::Algebraic; data Maybe = Nothing | Just :v; my $sum = 0; my @vs = ( Nothing, Just(5), Just(7), Nothing, Just(6) ); for my $v (@vs) { match ($v) { with (Nothing) { } with (Just $v) { $sum += $v; } } } say $sum; DESCRIPTION Types::Algebraic is an implementation of algebraic data types in perl. These kinds of data types are often seen in functional languages, and allow you to create and consume structured data containers very succinctly. The module provides two keywords: "data" for creating a new data type, and "match" to provide pattern matching on the type. USAGE Creating a new type with data The data keyword is used for creating a new type. The code data Maybe = Nothing | Just :v; creates a new type, of name Maybe, which has 2 data constructors, Nothing (taking no parameters), and Just (taking 1 parameter). You may insantiate values of this type by using one of the constructors with the appropriate number of arguments. my $a = Nothing; my $b = Just 5; Unpacking values with match In order to access the data stored within one of these values, you can use the match keyword. my $value = Just 7; match ($value) { with (Nothing) { say "There was nothing in there. :("; } with (Just $v) { say "I got the value $v!"; } } The cases are matched from the top down, and only the first matching case is run. You can also create a default fallback case, which will always run if reached. data Color = Red | Blue | Green | White | Black; match ($color) { with (Red) { say "Yay, you picked my favorite color!"; } default { say "Bah. You clearly have no taste."; } } Nested patterns Note, patterns can be nested, allowing for more complex unpacking: data PairingHeap = Empty | Heap :head :subheaps; data Pair = Pair :left :right; # Merge two pairing heaps (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pairing_heap) sub merge { my ($h1, $h2) = @_; match (Pair($h1, $h2)) { with (Pair Empty $h) { return $h; } with (Pair $h Empty) { return $h; } with (Pair (Heap $e1 $s1) (Heap $e2 $s2)) { return $e1 < $e2 ? Heap($e1, [$h2, @$s1]) : Heap($e2, [$h1, @$s2]); } } } LIMITATIONS Currently, match statements can't be nested. BUGS Please report bugs directly on the project's GitHub page . AUTHOR Sebastian Paaske Tørholm COPYRIGHT Copyright 2020- Sebastian Paaske Tørholm LICENSE This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. SEE ALSO