Monad +Control +base
The Monad class defines the basic operations over a monad, a concept from a branch of mathematics known as category theory. From the perspective of a Haskell programmer, however, it is best to think of a monad as an abstract datatype of actions. Haskell's do expressions provide a convenient syntax for writing monadic expressions.
Minimal complete definition: >>= and return.
Instances of Monad should satisfy the following laws:
> return a >>= k == k a
> m >>= return == m
> m >>= (\x -> k x >>= h) == (m >>= k) >>= h
Instances of both Monad and Functor should additionally satisfy the law:
> fmap f xs == xs >>= return . f
The instances of Monad for lists, Data.Maybe.Maybe and System.IO.IO defined in the Prelude satisfy these laws.
Monads having fixed points with a 'knot-tying' semantics. Instances of MonadFix should satisfy the following laws:
* purity mfix (return . h) = return (fix h)
* left shrinking (or tightening) mfix (\x -> a >>= \y -> f x y) = a >>= \y -> mfix (\x -> f x y)
* sliding mfix (Control.Monad.liftM h . f) = Control.Monad.liftM h (mfix (f . h)), for strict h.
* nesting mfix (\x -> mfix (\y -> f x y)) = mfix (\x -> f x x)
This class is used in the translation of the recursive do notation supported by GHC and Hugs.
Monads that also support choice and failure.