# Errors with binary search in Haskell

I just learned about Maybe in Haskell, so I decided to try to use it with a binary search.

Here's the function:

binarySearch :: (Ord a, Int b) => [a] -> a -> b -> b -> Maybe b

binarySearch l e beg last
| lookat < e = (binarySearch l e i last)
| lookat > e = (binarySearch l e beg i)
| lookat == e = Just i
| otherwise = Nothing
where i = floor ((beg+last)/2)
lookat = l !! i


l is a list, e is the element of interest, beg is the start of the section of interest and end is the end of said section. The error I am getting is:

BinarySearch.hs:1:25:
Int' is applied to too many type arguments
In the type signature for binarySearch':
binarySearch :: (Ord a, Int b) => [a] -> a -> b -> b -> Maybe b


I have tried a few other things including:

binarySearch :: Ord a => [a] -> a -> Int -> Int -> Maybe b


Yielding the error:

BinarySearch.hs:6:23:
Could not deduce (b ~ Int)
from the context (Ord a)
bound by the type signature for
binarySearch :: Ord a => [a] -> a -> Int -> Int -> Maybe b
at BinarySearch.hs:(3,1)-(9,22)
b' is a rigid type variable bound by
the type signature for
binarySearch :: Ord a => [a] -> a -> Int -> Int -> Maybe b
at BinarySearch.hs:3:1
In the first argument of Just', namely i'
In the expression: Just i
In an equation for binarySearch':
binarySearch l e beg last
| lookat < e = (binarySearch l e i last)
| lookat > e = (binarySearch l e beg i)
| lookat == e = Just i
| otherwise = Nothing
where
i = floor ((beg + last) / 2)
lookat = l !! i


I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Any corrections or comments on style or solution would be highly appreciated.

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You don't want Int b, you just want Int:

Ord a => [a] -> a -> Int -> Int -> Maybe Int

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Thank you! To make it fully work I also had to get rid of float and use quot instead of / when calculating i –  mjgpy3 Dec 19 '12 at 23:22