Defining Variants With Constructor Arguments

In Helping The Compiler Help Us With Variants, I introduced the concept of variants with a basic example of how to define and use one. The fun doesn't stop there.

We can take variants a step further by defining them with constructor arguments.

type listActions =
  | Length
  | Nth(int);

The second variant is defined such that it is paired with some extra data -- a single int argument.

Here is how we use that variant in our code:

let performListAction = (l: list(int), action: listActions) => {
  switch(action) {
  | Length => List.length(l)
  | Nth(n) => List.nth(l, n)
  }
};

performListAction([7,8,9], Nth(1)); /* 8 */
performListAction([1,2,3], Length); /* 3 */

Our switch statement not only matches on that variant, but it makes the int argument available as a value we can consume in that step of the switch.

source code