insertBST exercise

Question

I'm just learning Haskell on my own, and did an exercise to implement insertBST.

Is this idiomatic Haskell?

insertBST :: (a -> a -> Ordering) -> a -> BST a -> BST a
insertBST _ v Leaf = Node Leaf v Leaf
insertBST cmp v (Node left nv right) = case (cmp v nv) of
 EQ -> Node (insertBST cmp v left) nv right
 LT -> Node (insertBST cmp v left) nv right
 GT -> Node left nv (insertBST cmp v right)

Answer 1

Since the EQ and LT cases are the same, we can put GT first to remove this duplication

insertBST :: (a -> a -> Ordering) -> a -> BST a -> BST a
insertBST _ v Leaf = Node Leaf v Leaf
insertBST cmp v (Node left nv right) = case cmp v nv of
 GT -> Node left nv (insertBST cmp v right)
 _ -> Node (insertBST cmp v left) nv right

If you install hlint you will also get warnings about things like the redundant parentheses that were around cmp n nv. You can set up your editor to run this automatically on save.