3.6. Inspect Expression

A pattern match expression is a function. Therefore it is very convenient to use it to define a function. However it is a little bit clumsy to apply a pattern match expression directly to arguments.

In order to express such an application more conveniently there is an inspect expression with the syntax:

inspect
    a₁ a₂ ...
case
    -- list of clauses
    ...

which is equivalent to:

(case
    -- list of clauses
    ...
) a₁ a₂ ...

As in normal function application implicit arguments can be ommitted and will be reconstructed by the elaborator.

Note that the arguments a₁ a₂ ... can be arbitrary expressions.