Data.List.Split's `chunksOf` with 0 Value

Question

Data.List.Split 's chunksOf has the type:

Prelude Data.List.Split> :t chunksOf
chunksOf :: Int -> [e] -> [[e]]

Simple example:

Prelude Data.List.Split> chunksOf 2 [1,2,3,4]
[[1,2],[3,4]]

When I pass in a value of 0 , it returns an infinite list of empty list's:

Prelude Data.List.Split> take 5 $ chunksOf 0 [1]
[[],[],[],[],[]]

What's the reason for this behavior? What's the advantage/reason for not returning a Maybe [[a]] ?

Answer 1

There is precisely one sensible way to produce chunks of size 0 from a list, so it does that. It's not that useful, but it's better to produce something reasonable and useless than to deal with Maybe or throw exceptions.