OTOH, I feel it's taken too far in the regex packages. They feel extremely daunting for someone just getting started with Haskell. E.g. the wiki says that Text.

OTOH, I feel it's taken too far in the regex packages. They feel extremely daunting for someone just getting started with Haskell. E.g. the wiki says that Text.Regex.TDFA is the thing to use. First try: λ> "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" <interactive>:1558:1-18: Non type-variable argument in the constraint: RegexContext Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex source1 target (Use FlexibleContexts to permit this) When checking that ‘it’ has the inferred type it :: forall source1 target. (Data.String.IsString source1, RegexContext Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex source1 target) => target <interactive>:1558:7-8: Could not deduce (RegexMaker Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex CompOption ExecOption source0) arising from a use of ‘=~’ from the context (Data.String.IsString source1, RegexContext Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex source1 target) bound by the inferred type of it :: (Data.String.IsString source1, RegexContext Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex source1 target) => target at <interactive>:1558:1-18 The type variable ‘source0’ is ambiguous Note: there are several potential instances: instance RegexMaker Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex CompOption ExecOption Data.ByteString.Internal.ByteString -- Defined in ‘Text.Regex.TDFA.ByteString’ instance RegexMaker Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex CompOption ExecOption Data.ByteString.Lazy.Internal.ByteString -- Defined in ‘Text.Regex.TDFA.ByteString.Lazy’ instance RegexMaker Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex CompOption ExecOption (Data.Sequence.Seq Char) -- Defined in ‘Text.Regex.TDFA.Sequence’ ...plus one other In the expression: "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" In an equation for ‘it’: it = "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" <interactive>:1558:10-18: Could not deduce (Data.String.IsString source0) arising from the literal ‘"(a|b).*"’ from the context (Data.String.IsString source1, RegexContext Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex source1 target) bound by the inferred type of it :: (Data.String.IsString source1, RegexContext Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex source1 target) => target at <interactive>:1558:1-18 The type variable ‘source0’ is ambiguous Note: there are several potential instances: instance Data.String.IsString aeson-1.2.1.0:Data.Aeson.Types.Internal.Value -- Defined in ‘aeson-1.2.1.0:Data.Aeson.Types.Internal’ instance Data.String.IsString Data.ByteString.Builder.Internal.Builder -- Defined in ‘Data.ByteString.Builder’ instance Data.String.IsString Data.ByteString.Internal.ByteString -- Defined in ‘Data.ByteString.Internal’ ...plus 9 others In the second argument of ‘(=~)’, namely ‘"(a|b).*"’ In the expression: "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" In an equation for ‘it’: it = "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" Scary. Next most promising hit on ddg is bos' tutorial at http://www.serpentine.com/blog/2007/02/27/a-haskell-regular-expression-tutorial/ http://www.serpentine.com/blog/2007/02/27/a-haskell-regular-... which says I should be able to get a list of results by specifying the context [String]: λ> "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" :: [String] <interactive>:1497:1-5: No instance for (Data.String.IsString source10) arising from the literal ‘"abc"’ The type variable ‘source10’ is ambiguous Note: there are several potential instances: instance Data.String.IsString aeson-1.2.1.0:Data.Aeson.Types.Internal.Value -- Defined in ‘aeson-1.2.1.0:Data.Aeson.Types.Internal’ instance Data.String.IsString Data.ByteString.Builder.Internal.Builder -- Defined in ‘Data.ByteString.Builder’ instance Data.String.IsString Data.ByteString.Internal.ByteString -- Defined in ‘Data.ByteString.Internal’ ...plus 7 others In the first argument of ‘(=~)’, namely ‘"abc"’ In the expression: "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" :: [String] In an equation for ‘it’: it = "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" :: [String] <interactive>:1497:7-8: No instance for (RegexContext Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex source10 [String]) arising from a use of ‘=~’ The type variable ‘source10’ is ambiguous Note: there is a potential instance available: instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b [[b]] -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ In the expression: "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" :: [String] In an equation for ‘it’: it = "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" :: [String] <interactive>:1497:10-18: No instance for (Data.String.IsString source0) arising from the literal ‘"(a|b).*"’ The type variable ‘source0’ is ambiguous Note: there are several potential instances: instance Data.String.IsString aeson-1.2.1.0:Data.Aeson.Types.Internal.Value -- Defined in ‘aeson-1.2.1.0:Data.Aeson.Types.Internal’ instance Data.String.IsString Data.ByteString.Builder.Internal.Builder -- Defined in ‘Data.ByteString.Builder’ instance Data.String.IsString Data.ByteString.Internal.ByteString -- Defined in ‘Data.ByteString.Internal’ ...plus 7 others In the second argument of ‘(=~)’, namely ‘"(a|b).*"’ In the expression: "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" :: [String] In an equation for ‘it’: it = "abc" =~ "(a|b).*" :: [String] … so something about overloaded strings is confusing the type checker probably. Since I'm not a complete newbie I know I can specify string types explicitly: λ> ("abc"::String) =~ ("(a|b).*"::String) :: [String] <interactive>:1504:17-18: No instance for (RegexContext Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex String [String]) arising from a use of ‘=~’ In the expression: ("abc" :: String) =~ ("(a|b).*" :: String) :: [String] In an equation for ‘it’: it = ("abc" :: String) =~ ("(a|b).*" :: String) :: [String] That's … shorter, but still daunting. If I'm a bit more experienced, I know that I "just" have to do λ> :i RegexContext class RegexLike regex source => RegexContext regex source target where match :: regex -> source -> target matchM :: Monad m => regex -> source -> m target -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.RegexLike’ instance RegexContext Text.Regex.TDFA.Regex String String -- Defined in ‘Text.Regex.TDFA.String’ instance RegexContext Text.Regex.Regex String String -- Defined in ‘Text.Regex.Posix.String’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b [[b]] -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b (MatchResult b) -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b Int -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b Bool -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b (AllTextSubmatches [] (b, (MatchOffset, MatchLength))) -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b (AllTextSubmatches [] b) -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b (AllTextMatches [] b) -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b (AllSubmatches [] (MatchOffset, MatchLength)) -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b (AllMatches [] (MatchOffset, MatchLength)) -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b (b, b, b, [b]) -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b (b, b, b) -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b (MatchOffset, MatchLength) -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ instance RegexLike a b => RegexContext a b () -- Defined in ‘regex-base-0.93.2:Text.Regex.Base.Context’ and somewhere in that long list of instances I see that although [String] is not an instance, [[String]] is, so finally I see I can do λ> ("abc"::String) =~ ("(a|b).*"::String) :: [[String]] [ [ "abc" , "a" ] ] Of course, the end result looks nice in the code, but it takes forever to discover the API when you're new to the system (and the docs have next to no examples).