Zipping same value over a list of tuples Haskell

Question

I would like to transform the following tuple list

a = [(1,()),(2,())]

into a nested tuple list by the same value

b = [(False,(1,())),(False,(2,()))]

Using the zip function in this format

zip [False] a

only gives me

[(False,(1,()))]

Any suggestions or advice would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

If you zip two lists of different lengths, you get the length of the shortest list.

You can fix this by zipping against an infinitely long list:

zip (repeat False) a

should do the trick.

Answer 2

Alternatively, instead of using zip you can use map:

map (\x -> (False, x)) a

This would more appropriately express your intent (in my opinion) since you want to do the same thing to every element of the list. If you want to do different things to each element, then zip or zipWith may be more appropriate.

If you wanted to avoid the lambda, you can write it pointfree using &&& from Control.Arrow:

map (const False &&& id) a

which basically says "apply the functions const False and id to the input, then construct a tuple of both of their outputs". There is the TupleSections extension which would allow you to write this as

map (False,) a

(tip provided by @thoferon), but I personally find this less clear, since you have to know that the extension is enabled and notice the , after False. You could write it as

map ((,) False) a

without the extension since (,) acts as a function of type a -> b -> (a, b), and while a bit more verbose it doesn't require enabling a language extension.