Get data of type without pattern match on all data contructors - haskell

Question

Is there a way to make abstraction of the data type and just use the values?
data Color a = Blue a | Green a | Red a | Yellow a | Magenta a deriving (Show)
Something like :
calcColor :: Color a -> Color a -> Maybe a
calcColor (_ x) (_ y) = Just $ x + y
It doesn't have to be necessarily in the function declaration.
One option I was thinking was to have something like fromJust but even that feels a little redundant.
fromColor :: Color a -> a
fromColor (Blue t) = t
fromColor (Red t) = t
fromColor (Green t) = t
fromColor (Yellow t) = t
Edit - added context and more clarifications
From the way I managed to question it, the title might look like a duplicate question.
I'm not that sure, but that is for the community to decide.
I pretty new to Haskell so maybe my question looks stupid but still I think it's a valid case because I actually have this situation.
#FyodorSoikin, #leftaroundabout Your answers helps me, but partially. I'll try make explain better what exactly I would like to achive.
I want to think at the Color type like a category (let's say G), the colors beeing elements of the G,
and I also have phones that come in different colors. The phones category (let's say H).
Now I have I try to come with a way to make use of the morphisms (functions) of the G category using a functor in the H category or the other way around.
For example : determine the future stocks of a color type based on the sales of phones.
I want to understand to what extend I can create a types like Color to have the advantages of a type ustead of using a string value.

Answer 1

You could do a hack like
{-# LANGUAGE DeriveFoldable #-}
import Data.Foldable (Foldable, toList)
data Color a = Blue a | Green a | Red a | Yellow a | Magenta a
deriving (Show, Foldable)
fromColor :: Color a -> a
fromColor c = case toList c of
[ca] -> ca
_ -> error "Impossible, `Color` has only one field."
But I agree with Fyodor Soikin's comment: why have the a field in each constructor in the first place? Just factor it out
data Hue = Blue | Green | Red | Yellow | Magenta
data Color a = Color { hue :: Hue, value :: a }

Answer 2

Based on your edit, it looks like you are looking for a basic vocabulary for dealing with Color. That can be provided both by class instances and by special-purpose functions.
A Functor instance, for example, allows you to change the a value in a Color a independently of the color itself:
data Hue = Blue | Green | Red | Yellow | Magenta
deriving (Eq, Show)
data Color a = Color { hue :: Hue, value :: a }
deriving (Eq, Show)
instance Functor Color where
fmap f (Color h a) = Color h (f a)
GHCi> test1 = Color Red 27
GHCi> fmap (2*) test1
Color {hue = Red, value = 54}
Two brief notes:
The things I'm suggesting here can be done equally as well with your four-constructor Color type or with leftaroundabout's single-constructor one. The latter, though, should be easier to work with in most situations, so I'll stick with it.
The DeriveFunctor extension means you almost never have to write a Functor instance explicitly: turn it on by adding {-# LANGUAGE DeriveFunctor #-} to the top of your file and then just write:
data Color a = Color { hue :: Hue, value :: a }
deriving (Eq, Show, Functor)
Another thing you might want to do is having a Hue -> Colour a -> Maybe a function, which would give you a way to use operations on Maybe to filter the a values by their attached hue:
colorToMaybe :: Hue -> Color a -> Maybe a
colorToMaybe chosenHue col
| hue col == chosenHue = Just (value col)
| otherwise = Nothing
GHCi> test1 = Color Red 27
GHCi> test2 = Color Red 14
GHCi> test3 = Color Blue 33
GHCi> import Data.Maybe
GHCi> mapMaybe (colorToMaybe Red) [test1, test2, test3]
[27,14]
GHCi> import Control.Applicative
GHCi> liftA2 (+) (colorToMaybe Red test1) (colorToMaybe Red test2)
Just 41
GHCi> liftA2 (+) (colorToMaybe Red test1) (colorToMaybe Red test3)
Nothing
These are just rather arbitrary suggestions. The specifics of what you'll want to define will depend on your use cases.