How do you iterate a List (Maybe a) - elm

Question

I have the following graphQL result:
[Just { details = Just "Engine failure at 33 seconds and loss of
vehicle", launch_year = Just "2006", links = Just { article_link =
Just
"https://www.space.com/2196-spacex-inaugural-falcon-1-rocket-lost-launch.html"
}, mission_name = Just "FalconSat" }]
Based on the following types:
type alias Launch =
{ mission_name : Maybe String
, details : Maybe String
, launch_year : Maybe String
, links : Maybe LaunchLinks
}
type alias Launches =
Maybe (List (Maybe Launch))
type alias LaunchLinks =
{ article_link : Maybe String
}
I want to List.map through and display the results in unordered list. I started with this:
renderLaunch : Launches -> Html Msg
renderLaunch launches =
div [] <|
case launches of
Nothing ->
[ text "Nothing here" ]
Just launch ->
launch
|> List.map (\x -> x)
|> ul []
But I keep getting this error:
This function cannot handle the argument sent through the (|>) pipe:
141| launch 142| |> List.map (\x
-> x) 143| |> ul []
^^^^^ The argument is:
List (Maybe Launch)
But (|>) is piping it a function that expects:
List (Html msg)

Answer 1

The problem is that the Just launch case needs to result in a List (Html msg) but the code results in a different type being returned.
When you are using List.map (\x -> x), it is essentially a no-op. You are iterating over a List (Maybe Launch) and returning the same thing. I'd recommend creating another function that takes a Maybe Launch value and use that as your mapping function. For example:
displayLaunch : Maybe Launch -> Html Msg
displayLaunch launch =
case launch of
Nothing -> text "No launch"
Just l -> text (Debug.toString l)
Now you can plug that into your mapping function:
Just launch ->
launch
|> List.map displayLaunch
|> ul []
But, whoops! Now you get a new error indicating:
The 2nd branch is:
Html Msg
But all the previous branches result in:
List (Html msg)
The problem here is that we are now returning a ul from the Just launch branch and we need to return a list of html. You can use List.singleton to create a list with just one item:
Just launch ->
launch
|> List.map displayLaunch
|> ul []
|> List.singleton