How can I get nth element from a list?

Question

How can I access a list by index in Haskell, analog to this C code?

int a[] = { 34, 45, 56 };
return a[1];

Answer 1

Haskell's standard list data type forall t. [t] in implementation closely resembles a canonical C linked list, and shares its essentially properties. Linked lists are very different from arrays. Most notably, access by index is a O(n) linear-, instead of a O(1) constant-time operation.

If you require frequent random access, consider the Data.Array standard.

!! is an unsafe partially defined function, provoking a crash for out-of-range indices. Be aware that the standard library contains some such partial functions (head, last, etc.). For safety, use an option type Maybe, or the Safe module.

Example of a reasonably efficient, robust total (for indices ≥ 0) indexing function:

data Maybe a = Nothing | Just a

lookup :: Int -> [a] -> Maybe a
lookup _ []       = Nothing
lookup 0 (x : _)  = Just x
lookup i (_ : xs) = lookup (i - 1) xs

Working with linked lists, often ordinals are convenient:

nth :: Int -> [a] -> Maybe a
nth _ []       = Nothing
nth 1 (x : _)  = Just x
nth n (_ : xs) = nth (n - 1) xs