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Is there an aeson-like XML serialization library?
by Thomas Koster 31 Mar '15

31 Mar '15

Hi list, I want to write a simple XML web service in Haskell that services a .NET WCF client, but am struggling with choosing the right XML library. "aeson" [1] has been a pleasure to use, so I am looking for an XML serialization library similar to aeson, where I can write ToElement/FromElement instances using simple applicative combinators, working with a high-level document model (i.e. not a parse tree), just like I have done in the past with ToJSON/FromJSON. Does such a library exist? I need the library to understand XML namespaces and the mandatory predefined entities, but I do not need any other extensions like XML Schemas, XPath or XSLT. Preferably, "xmlns" attributes should be handled specially and namespace prefixes resolved by the parser. "xmlns" attributes should be placed automatically by the renderer (I don't care what prefixes it chooses). I do not want to have to keep track of seen namespace prefixes while I am traversing the document, or to manually place "xmlns" attributes on elements for rendering. The "xml" [2] library is giving me grief at the moment with how unspecial its treatment of namespaces is. HXT appears to be beyond my skill level at the moment. There appear to be too many new things I would have to learn all at once before I could use it for this simple task. Cf. aeson, which I was able to use for practical applications the day I learned what an applicative functor was. [1] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/aeson [2] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/xml Thanks, -- Thomas Koster

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Arrow vs. function
by martin 31 Mar '15

31 Mar '15

Hello all I skimmed several Arrow tutorial and looked at the pretty diagrams and thought to myself "Hmm, these guys seem to take input and produce output". But that's what a function does. So what's the fundamental difference between an arrow and a fuction?

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Arithmetic expression parsing problem
by m00nlight 30 Mar '15

30 Mar '15

Dear Haskellers, I am new to programming in haskell, recently I came up with an task to write an simple arithemtic evaluator in haskell. I try to write it using Text.Parsec, it can handle binary operation and some unary operation, but will give information of parsing error in some case. The following is my code import Text.Parsec import Text.Parsec.Expr import Text.Parsec.Combinator import Data.Functor data Exp = Num Int | Add Exp Exp | Sub Exp Exp | Mul Exp Exp | Div Exp Exp | Pos Exp | Neg Exp expr = buildExpressionParser table factor table = [[op "*" (Mul) AssocRight, op "/" (Div) AssocRight] ,[op "+" (Add) AssocLeft, op "-" (Sub) AssocLeft] ,[prefix "-" (Neg), prefix "+" (Pos)]] where op s f assoc = Infix (f <$ string s) assoc prefix s f = Prefix (f <$ string s) factor = between (char '(') (char ')') expr <|> (Num . read <$> many1 digit) eval :: (Num a, Integral a) => Exp -> a eval e = case e of Num x -> fromIntegral x Pos a -> eval a Neg a -> negate $ eval a Add a b -> eval a + eval b Sub a b -> eval a - eval b Mul a b -> eval a * eval b Div a b -> eval a `div` eval b solution :: (Num a, Integral a) => String -> a solution = either (const (error "Did not parse")) eval . parse expr "" The following is some test, *Main> solution "-4/(2+3)" 0 *Main> solution "-4/(2-3)" 4 *Main> solution "-4/-2" *** Exception: Did not parse *Main> solution "16/-4" *** Exception: Did not parse *Main> solution "-16/4" -4 *Main> Can anyone teach me how to solve this? Thanks in advanced. --m00nlight

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failure $ cabal install wx
by Jeffrey Brown 29 Mar '15

29 Mar '15

Hi! I first sent this to Haskell-Cafe, then thought this would be a better destination. I switched OSs, from Ubuntu to OpenSuse 13.2, to fix some other problems. I since installed The Haskell Platform, and would like to install wxHaskell. The first time I tried that under OpenSuse, cabal install wx provided more output, installing a lot of things. Since then it has only given this: jeff@linux-ee07:~> cabal install wx Resolving dependencies... [1 of 1] Compiling Main ( /tmp/wxc-0.91.0.0-16672/wxc-0.91.0.0/Setup.hs, /tmp/wxc-0.91.0.0-16672/wxc-0.91.0.0/dist/setup/Main.o ) Linking /tmp/wxc-0.91.0.0-16672/wxc-0.91.0.0/dist/setup/setup ... Configuring wxc-0.91.0.0... Warning: No config found to match: /usr/bin/wx-config --version=2.9 --version-full in /usr/lib64/wx/config If you require this configuration, please install the desired library build. If this is part of an automated configuration test and no other errors occur, you may safely ignore it. You may use wx-config --list to see all configs available in the default prefix. readProcess failed: readProcess: wx-config "--version=2.9" "--version-full" (exit 1): failed Configuring wxc to build against wxWidgets 3.0.2.0 Building wxc /usr/bin/gcc -Wl,--hash-size=31 -Wl,--reduce-memory-overheads -Wl,--disable-new-dtags -Isrc/include -I/usr/include/wx-3.0 -I/usr/lib64/wx/include/gtk3-unicode-3.0 -D__WXGTK__ -DWXUSINGDLL -DwxDEBUG_LEVEL=0 -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -DwxcREFUSE_MEDIACTRL -fPIC -c src/cpp/apppath.cpp -o dist/build/src/cpp/apppath.o gcc: error trying to exec 'cc1plus': execvp: No such file or directory Failed to install wxc-0.91.0.0 cabal: Error: some packages failed to install: wx-0.91.0.0 depends on wxc-0.91.0.0 which failed to install. wxc-0.91.0.0 failed during the building phase. The exception was: ExitFailure 1 wxcore-0.91.0.0 depends on wxc-0.91.0.0 which failed to install. jeff@linux-ee07:~> The file /usr/bin/wx-config exists. It may have gotten there today when I installed some wx packages via zypper (OpenSuse's equivalent to apt-get). I don't remember which those packages were, but in the wx-configg file appear these lines: this_version="3.0" [ -z "$output_option_release" ] || echo "3.0" [ -z "$output_option_version" ] || echo "3.0.2" [ -z "$output_option_version_full" ] || echo "3.0.2.0" so I believe the version of wx I have is 3.0.2.0. I'm using a Lenovo Thinkpad Edge 535 or 545. Thanks, Jeff

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parser frontend
by Maurizio Vitale 28 Mar '15

28 Mar '15

G'day, I'm trying to decide how to architect the frontend of a compiler I'm using as an excuse for learning Haskell. Suppose we have a language (SystemVerilog) that has the notion of multi-file compilation units. This means that specific subset of files form separate scopes for certain things. For instance if we represent with lists of lists compilation units: [[a,b,c], [d], [e,f]] a macro definition in file b, would affect the rest of the file and file c, but wouldn't have effect on files d,e or a. Furthermore, if a toplevel construct is split between two files, say c and d, the compiler should treat the original compilation unit specification as if it was: [[a,b,(c,d)][e,f]], where (c,d) means we're compiling the logical concatenation of c and d. If (c,d) is also incomplete, (c,d,e) should be tried and so on. Now in well designed systems, all files can actually be compiled in parallel and so I'd like to optimize for that case and recompile files (either because we need side effects from files before them or because they're incomplete. So I'm not to concerned if wasted work is done for the degenerate cases. Any suggestion on how to go about this? Le's assume that parsing a file is done with a function: p :: file -> Either Error (ast, [defs], [use]) where the [defs] are things that might affects files down the line and [use] are things that, if defined by some prior file, cause recompilation. I'm interested in both a sequential and parallel solution and it would be sweet if they where similar, with the proper abstractions. Thanks a lot for any insight/ideas, Maurizio

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Automatic Differentiation
by Animesh Saxena 28 Mar '15

28 Mar '15

I was implementing automatic differentiation in haskell and was able to code the calculation part, but I wanted to extend it to show the symbols instead of just the final value. Let me explain and copy/paste the code… 3 data ADif a = ADif a a deriving (Eq) 10 instance Floating x => Floating (ADif x) where 11 pi = ADif pi 0 12 exp (ADif x x') = ADif (exp x) (x' * exp x) 13 log (ADif x x') = ADif (log x) (x' / x) 14 sqrt (ADif x x') = ADif (sqrt x) (x' / (2 * sqrt x)) 15 sin (ADif x x') = ADif (sin x) (x' * cos x) 16 cos (ADif x x') = ADif (cos x) (x' * (- sin x)) ….And so on all the functions 27 instance Num x => Num (ADif x) where 28 ADif x x' + ADif y y' = ADif (x+y) (x'+y') 29 ADif x x' * ADif y y' = ADif (x*y) (y'*x + x'*y) 30 fromInteger x = fromInteger x let myfunction x = exp (log (sin x)) *Main> myfunction (ADif 2 1) -0.4161468365471424 I verified that this is the correct solution by hand! (& well mathematica too!) Anyway now I was hoping to print the actual symbols, so I was googling around for extending “Show” typeclass for floating and Num, kinda similar pattern. Is this the right approach? Or I need to rethink the problem? Basically my aim is to do something like mathematica where if I specify D[f[x],x] then I get the answer in symbols. -Animesh

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Re: [Haskell-beginners] Maybe and Just
by Corentin Dupont 27 Mar '15

27 Mar '15

Not really, when you define the type "Maybe a": data Maybe a = Just a | Nothing Haskell is creating automatically two functions for you: Just :: a -> Maybe a Nothing :: Maybe a In the first case, you can think of "Just" and "Nothing" as a sort of tag identifying which element of the sum you have. It the second case it's a function, with the same name. A more informed person than me could say if they are indeed separated of if they are the same thing in GHC... On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 5:34 PM, Shishir Srivastava < shishir.srivastava(a)gmail.com> wrote: > isn't that then cyclic dependency between 'Maybe' and 'Just' ...where the > first one is defined in terms of second and vice-versa...? > > Shishir > > > On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 3:48 PM, Corentin Dupont < > corentin.dupont(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hi Shishir, >> I think that's a legitimate question. >> >> By writing >> >> data Maybe a = a | Nothing >> >> you are saying that the type of the left hand side of the = is the same >> that right hand side (you are defining a type basically). >> Also you can only sum things of the same type. >> So you are saying: >> type "Maybe a" = type "a" >> Which is wrong. >> That's why "a" should be wrapped into something: >> type of "Just a" is indeed "Maybe a". >> >> "Just" is a type constructor: >> Just :: a -> Maybe a >> It allows you to build the Maybe. >> >> Said that, "Just" is a vocabulary choice. >> Personally I prefer the name choices of OCaml, Rust, Scala etc.: Option >> a = None | Some a >> >> >> >> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 4:26 PM, Shishir Srivastava < >> shishir.srivastava(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> ok..but what's with using the keyword 'Just' ? why cannot 'Maybe' be >>> defined like this >>> >>> data Maybe a = a | Nothing >>> >>> what's the point in having 'Just' keyword ? >>> >>> Shishir >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 10:26 AM, Michael Alan Dorman < >>> mdorman(a)ironicdesign.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Shishir Srivastava <shishir.srivastava(a)gmail.com> writes: >>>> > After reading and re-reading the haskell tutorials I don't happen to >>>> > see a very convincing or appealing reason for having these data >>>> > types. >>>> >>>> To be clear: Maybe is the data *type*. Just and Nothing are its data >>>> *constructors*. >>>> >>>> > Can anyone please explain where Maybe and Just provide the sort of >>>> > functionality that cannot be achieved in other languages which don't >>>> > have these kind. >>>> >>>> The functionality can be achieved in other languages, certainly. The >>>> question is whether the clarity and safety is also achieved. >>>> >>>> When I see (as a totally contrived example): >>>> >>>> fopen :: Maybe FileHandle >>>> >>>> I know that that function may not be able to return a FileHandle value >>>> all the time. The compiler will, in fact, nag me if I do not write the >>>> code that calls it in such a way that it acknowledges that possibility. >>>> >>>> When I see: >>>> >>>> FILE * fopen ( const char * filename, const char * mode ); >>>> >>>> It is not immediately clear whether that can fail. Sure, we can make >>>> that inference, based on what we know about filesystems, etc., but the >>>> compiler is never going to complain if I ignore the possibility. >>>> >>>> In my experience, programmers in many languages end up resorting to >>>> convention to try and work around these sorts of ambiguities. Large >>>> projects have strategies for naming functions that try to pass along >>>> information out of band, or languages have a pervasive culture of "lint" >>>> tools that try to use heuristics to make up for what the type system >>>> doesn't make simple. >>>> >>>> That said, I know that doing Maybe sorts of things in languages that >>>> don't have, say, pattern matching, or the idea of a "failure monad", >>>> gets to be a drag very quickly---manually unwrapping things is at best >>>> awkward, having to re-wrap them just to unwrap them again in a sequence >>>> of computations quickly leads one to believe "it's just not worth >>>> it"---or you resort to exception handling, which has its own challenges >>>> to do well. >>>> >>>> Mike. >>>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Beginners mailing list >>> Beginners(a)haskell.org >>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/beginners >>> >>> >> >

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Writing a Parser with attoparsec that reads from a list of tokens
by Norbert Melzer 27 Mar '15

27 Mar '15

Hi there! I want to write some small toy language using attoparsec. So I thought, first step tokenize. Let attoparsec consume the input stream and produce a list of tokens. Second step, parse tokens and produce the AST. Using parsec this would be possible easily and is documented. But I want to use attoparsec for this task, because I am interested in attoparsecs capability to have the input in chunks. TIA Norbert

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ap = liftM2 id
by martin 26 Mar '15

26 Mar '15

Hello all, can someone explain ap = liftM2 id to me? liftM2 wants a binary funcation liftM2 :: (Monad m) => (a1 -> a2 -> r) -> m a1 -> m a2 -> m r but id is unary. How does this work?

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Maybe and Just
by Shishir Srivastava 26 Mar '15

26 Mar '15

Hi, After reading and re-reading the haskell tutorials I don't happen to see a very convincing or appealing reason for having these data types. Can anyone please explain where Maybe and Just provide the sort of functionality that cannot be achieved in other languages which don't have these kind. Thanks, Shishir Srivastava

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