Question:

I am using Elm (0.18) and imported simonh1000's <a href="https://github.com/simonh1000/file-reader" rel="nofollow">FileReader</a> library. To store a file value, we use the following type:

import Json.Decode as Json exposing (Decoder, Value) ... {-| An ArrayBuffer is a Elm Json Value. -} type alias FileContentArrayBuffer = Value

I want to initialize my model with an empty placeholder. I do this as follows:

type alias Model = { username : String , filecontent: FileContentArrayBuffer } initialModel : Model initialModel = { username = "mark" , filecontent = Nothing }

But the compiler gives me this error:

The type annotation for `initialModel` says it is a: Model But the definition (shown above) is a: { username : String , filecontent : Maybe a }

Since <a href="http://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm-lang/core/5.1.1/Json-Decode#Value" rel="nofollow">Json.Decode.Value</a> is an alias for <a href="http://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm-lang/core/5.1.1/Json-Encode#Value" rel="nofollow">Json.Encode.Value</a>, if you really want to initialize a Value type as a JSON {}, you can do the following:

filecontent = Json.Encode.object []

However, I think in your case, it makes more sense to refactor to a Maybe FileContentArrayBuffer field type, since, what would you do with an Value type that decodes to {} anyway? A Nothing value definitely seems more fitting and idiomatic.