Overly complicated parser combinator

Question

I recently started to learn Haskell in order to write some small tools for me. Currently I'm working on a program which calculates how much steam a (railcraft) boiler of a given size outputs per tick.

In the console the user inputs a string of the following format: S | L | BL-Size | BH-Size, example BH-3x3x4

I then use ParserCombinators from the Text.ParserCombinators.ReadP library to parse this string into a custom type. However I think my parser is overly complicated. Any suggestions how to simplify the following code?

module Boilers (Boiler(..), Tank(..)) where

data Boiler = Hobbyist | Locomotive | Boiler (Int, Int, Int) Tank deriving (Show)
data Tank = HighPressure | LowPressure deriving (Eq, Show)

module BoilerParser where

import Data.Char
import Text.ParserCombinators.ReadP
import Control.Applicative
import Boilers
import Data.Maybe

boiler :: ReadP Boiler
boiler = do
  b <- standard <++ hobbyist <++ locomotive
  maybe pfail return b

standard :: ReadP (Maybe Boiler)
standard = do
  satisfy (\c -> toUpper c == 'B')
  t <- fmap (\t -> case toUpper t of
    'H' -> Just HighPressure
    'L' -> Just LowPressure
    _   -> Nothing) get
  satisfy (== '-')
  s <- BoilerParser.size
  case t of
    Nothing -> pfail
    (Just a) -> return (Just (Boiler s a))

hobbyist :: ReadP (Maybe Boiler)
hobbyist = fmap (\c -> if toUpper c == 'H' then Just Hobbyist else Nothing) get

locomotive :: ReadP (Maybe Boiler)
locomotive = fmap (\c -> if toUpper c == 'L' then Just Locomotive else Nothing) get

size :: ReadP (Int, Int, Int)
size = do
  x <- size' 1
  satisfy (== 'x')
  y <- size' 1
  satisfy (== 'x')
  z <- size' 1
  return (x,y,z)

size':: Int -> ReadP Int
size' ds = fmap read (count ds (satisfy isDigit))

Answer 1

boiler :: ReadP Boiler
boiler
  =   Hobbyist <$ char 'H'
  <|> Locomotive <$ char 'L'
  <|> flip Boiler <$ char 'B'
    <*> (HighPressure <$ char 'H' <|> LowPressure <$ char 'L')
    <*> ((,,) <$ char '-'
      <*> (read <$> munch1 isDigit) <* char 'x'
      <*> (read <$> munch1 isDigit) <* char 'x'
      <*> (read <$> munch1 isDigit))

By changing the internal definition of Boiler you can clean up that flip.

By also changing the user interface you can use the Read instance deriver:

data Boiler = H | L | BL Int Int Int | BH Int Int Int deriving (Read, Show)

Your example would then look like BH 3 3 4.

By the way, whereever you're using the Eq instance of Tank, consider pattern matching instead.