exhaustive-pattern-matching-of-list-variants.md

Exhaustive Pattern Matching Of List Variants

ReasonML's switch expression allows for powerful pattern matching. When using switch to pattern match against a list, the compiler will be sure to warn you if you haven't accounted for all variants of a list.

let getFirst = (numList: list(int)): int => {
  switch(numList) {
  | [first, ...rest] => first
  };
};

this pattern-matching is not exhaustive. Here is an example of a value that is not matched: []

The compiler knows that a list can either be 1) empty ([]) or 2) contain at least one value and another list ([a, ...rest]). To ensure all variants are accounted for, we can include the [] case in our switch.

let getFirst = (numList: list(int)): int => {
  switch(numList) {
  | [] => -1
  | [first, ...rest] => first
  };
};

source code