September 2003 - Haskell-Cafe

Why no findM ? simple Cat revisited
by Ahn Ki-yung 11 Nov '03

11 Nov '03

Simple Cat (revisitied) \begin{code} import IO findM f [] = return Nothing findM f (x:xs) = do { v <- x; if f v then return (Just v) else findM f xs } isLeft (Left _) = True isLeft _ = False main = findM (isLeft) (hCat stdin) where hCat h = try (hGetLine h) : hCat h \end{code} This is my answer for the question of my own, which is posted a couple There are mapM, filterM in the Haskell 98 Standard Library. But why no findM there ? As you can see from simple cat, it seems quite useful. I think fildM should be added to the module Monad. -- Ahn Ki-yung

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Modeling multiple inheritance
by Brandon Michael Moore 04 Nov '03

04 Nov '03

I'm trying to build a nicer interface over the one generated by jvm-bridge. I'm using fancy type classes to remove the need to mangle method names. I would like methods to be automatcially inherited, following an inheritance hierarcy defined with another set of type classes. My basic classes look like this class HasFooMethod cls args result | cls args -> result where foo :: cls -> args -> result If I have classes A and B with foo methods like foo_JA_Jint :: ClassA -> Jint -> Bool foo_JB_Jboolean :: ClassB -> Bool -> Jint then I can make instances instance HasFooMethod ClassA Jint Bool instance HasFooMethod ClassB Bool Jint Now I can just use foo everywhere. I would like to avoid declaring an instance for every class though. In java methods are inherited from a superclass, and I would like to inherit methods automatically as well. In the bindings jvm-bridge generates a method is invoked with a function mangled after the highest ancestor that defined that particular overloading, so the implementation of HasFooMethod at a particular overloading is the same for any descendant. So I defined a class to model the inheritance relationships class SubType super sub | sub -> super where upCast :: sub -> super Now I can define a default instance of HasFooMethod: instance (HasFooMethod super args result, SubClass super sub) => HasFooMethod sub args result where foo sub args = foo (upCast sub) args This will propagate foo methods down the inheritance hierarcy. If a new class C is derived from A, I just need to say instance SubClass ClassA ClassC and ClassC gets a foo method. (In the actually code I piggy-back on a transitive subclass relation jvm-bridge defines that already includes an upcast method, so upCast has a default that should always be acceptable). The problem comes when interfaces are added to the mix. Interfaces are treated just like classes by jvm-bridge, and even though no implementation is inherited from instances in Java, the method accessors generated by jvm-bridge should be inherited. One problem is that the subclass relationship needs the functional dependency so that the default instance of HasFooMethod will respects the functional dependencies of HasFooMethod, so I can't declare subclass instances for multiple inheritance. On the other hand, if I don't use the functional dependency on HasFooMethod I end up needing to annotate most of the return values in a program. I run into similar problems trying to use numeric literals as arguments, because they are also overloaded. Does anyone know of clever solutions that would model multiple inheritance while preserving the functional dependencies (unsafe compiler flags are fine too), or ways to reduce the pain of overloading resolution without the functional dependency? One alternative is generating seperate HasFooMethod instances for every class in the system. The problem is that this would require alterating the bit of jvm-bridge that uses JNI to find information on classes, which currently only reports newly defined methods. JNI is black magic to me. Thanks Brandon

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Re: lexer puzzle
by Brandon Michael Moore 05 Oct '03

05 Oct '03

Note I've replied to haskell-cafe. This post is a bit chatty and low on solid answers. On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Sean L. Palmer wrote: > > >>A... should be split into "A.." and "." > > >I found a compromise: let's make it a lexing error! :-) > > At least that agrees with what some Haskell compilers implement. No > > current Haskell compiler/interpreter agrees with what the report seems > > to say, that is that "A..." should be lexed as the two tokens "A.." and > > ".", and similarly, "A.where" should be lexed as "A.wher" followed by "e". > > Hi. I'm really new to Haskell, just learning it, and I must say I'm pretty > overwhelmed by the large variety of constructs. (=>, <-, \ to name a few) Would that be \ as in TREX row variable polymorphism? Just remember most operators are just library functions. It's only =, ->, =>, <-, :: that are really part of the language, and {,},; for grouping. Did I miss any? > > But I'm just writing this to let you guys know (surely you know this > already) that anyone from a C/C++/Java/Delphi background is going to > completely misunderstand the meaning of A.anything in Haskell... it's > completely nonintuitive to people with my background. I kinda like dot > notation because it ties together the symbols visually, for instance > "myrec.myfield" is more of a unit than "myrec myfield". It stays together > better when surrounded by other code, and would result in fewer parenthesis > necessary. A Python programmer would understand instantly: Python uses exactly the same syntax for module access, though Python modules are usually in lowercase. It also seems to be very much in the spirit of "access a member of this object" of an OO language. Or was that supposed to be composition of a constructor with a function, A . f? Function composition, and higher order functions in general are likely to confuse an imperative programmer, but I think there isn't much syntax can do there. Or are you talking about the field access syntax? Maybe the problem is that dot has two to five different meanings, function composition, naming module members, building hierarchial module names, being a decimal point, and making elipses, and is commonly used for yet another purpose in OO languages. > Haskell to me seems to be a great language with a syntax problem, and a bad > case of too many ways to do the same thing; thus every programmer does > things their own way and it's difficult to grasp the language by looking at > various programs, since they're all so very different. As a small example, > there's 'let' vs. 'where'. Maybe a bit of pruning would be in order. Do you mean the syntax is bad in places? Haskell is the cleanest language I know of, but I'm sure it has some grungy bits. I've had problems with unary minus (can't slice binary minus), and precedence of with irrefuatble patterns and type ascription. I would be happy for any confusing syntax to be improved. Any good ideas? Syntax change is a possibility: do notation is a relatively recent addition, and arrow syntax is in the works. I think you might instead mean the syntax cuts down our market share because it isn't like common (C derived) languages. I don't think Haskell could borrow any more syntax from C without actually making the language worse. It's a problem, but not with the syntax. If someone is so solidly into a C++/Java/OO mindset that the syntax would be a problem, the semantics would probably be even more of a problem. I would suggest Python if Haskell was too much of a jump for someone. It's still OO, but it encourages more flexible and interesting programs, and you don't have to live in a Java type system. Plus, it has more libraries, bindings, and PR, so it's easier to get permission to use it in a company. If someone is used to Python's layout rule and lack of type signatures, and gets their head around some of the fun you can have dynamically picking which members of an object to access, assigning to __dict__ and so on, then Haskell should be much less of a jump in syntax, and less imposing in semantics. > That said, I still think it looks more promising than any other language > I've looked at that actually is being actively used and maintained and has a > decent installed base and good cross platform support. So I will learn it. > I just wish the transition was easier and that it took less time to learn. > ;) > > Sean I learned Haskell from the "gentle introduction". It seemed gentle enough to me but others disagree, so I'm probably not the best for advice for the raw beginner. If you are interested in learning about monads though, Jeff Newbern's monad tutorial seems accessible and as complete as anything this side of Phil Wadler's paper. I hope learning Haskell goes well. Brandon

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swap leak problem
by David Roundy 30 Sep '03

30 Sep '03

Hello. I've got a memory problem that is stumping me, and could use advice in trying to fix it. In brief, the heap of my application keeps increasing with time, until after a few hours it uses up all my swap and gets killed. There is no indication of a true memory leak. Heap profiling indicates that the haskell memory usage (including stacks, via -xt) remains below its initial peak value. Similarly, I've attached a sort of debugging counting finalizer to my foreignPtrs (a static int in C land), and it's clear that all the foreignPtrs I allocate are getting freed. Most of them are allocated with mallocForeignPtrBytes anyways, which should be about as safe an allocation method as one could use. The allocation pattern of my code is as follows. It reads a gzipped patch file into memory, parses it, then reads in a bunch of other files, and writes modified versions of them. Then it reads in the next patch and repeats. So it does large amounts of allocation and deallocation on a periodic basis. About half of the memory used is stored in foreignPtrs. With the exception of the patch files (which I'll get to later), all foreignPtrs are generated by mallocForeignPtrBytes or mallocForeignPtrArray. The patch files are gzip compressed, so I don't know their size until I've read them. I read the patch file one chunk at a time, and use reallocBytes to allocate a bit more memory each time. I don't expect in general to be calling reallocBytes more than four times per patch file. Of course, once I'm done I convert to a foreignPtr via newForeignPtr finalizerFree. My only idea as to the source of the problem is that it could be either a result of memory fragmentation or of not cleaning up before allocating. Neither theory is particularly convincing. Unfortunately, I'm at a loss as to how to track this problem down, so any advise would be appreciated. -- David Roundy http://www.abridgegame.org/darcs

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RE: Database interface - would like advice on oracle library bind ing
by Bayley, Alistair 29 Sep '03

29 Sep '03

Yes, I know of it. Krasimir's code uses similar functions and types in the three bindings (MySQL, ODBC, PostgreSql), but the bindings do not share a common interface (AFAICT). Because they are so similar, making them support a common interface shouldn't be a lot of work. I was hoping the earlier discussions on database interfaces would converge to a solution most interested parties agreed on. I'm still sold on the left-fold interface discussed previously. Oleg claims it is sufficient, as it can be automatically converted to a stream-like interface. I bit of me agrees with you that I should be consistent with previous work, and another bit says make it simple and elegant, and this leads me towards Oleg's proposals (left-fold + auto-generated value extraction functions + auto-generated stream functions). Do others on this list (and elsewhere) have any further opinions as to how a database interface ought to look? > -----Original Message----- > From: Tim Docker [mailto:timd@macquarie.com.au] > Sent: 29 September 2003 13:43 > To: Bayley, Alistair; haskell-cafe(a)haskell.org > Subject: RE: Database interface - would like advice on oracle library > bind ing > > > > Alistair Bayley wrote: > > > Still making slow progress on an Oracle database binding... > > now I'm trying to fit the API I have into some sort of > > abstract interface (like the one(s) discussed previously: > > > Since the previous dicussion I've discovered Krasimir > Angelov's HSQL interface as part of his HTOOLKIT: > > https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=65248 > > This has a uniform abstract interface similar to the one > discussed, apparently implemented for MYSQL, ODBC, and > PostgreSQL. I've only played with the MYSQL variant. > > If possible, it would seem sensible to provide a consistent > interface for your Oracle binding. If not, it may be worth > persuading him to generalise the interface. > > Then again, perhaps you knew about this already. > > Tim ***************************************************************** The information in this email and in any attachments is confidential and intended solely for the attention and use of the named addressee(s). This information may be subject to legal professional or other privilege or may otherwise be protected by work product immunity or other legal rules. It must not be disclosed to any person without our authority. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are not authorised to and must not disclose, copy, distribute, or retain this message or any part of it. *****************************************************************

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RE: Database interface - would like advice on oracle library bind ing
by Tim Docker 29 Sep '03

29 Sep '03

Alistair Bayley wrote: > Still making slow progress on an Oracle database binding... > now I'm trying to fit the API I have into some sort of > abstract interface (like the one(s) discussed previously: Since the previous dicussion I've discovered Krasimir Angelov's HSQL interface as part of his HTOOLKIT: https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=65248 This has a uniform abstract interface similar to the one discussed, apparently implemented for MYSQL, ODBC, and PostgreSQL. I've only played with the MYSQL variant. If possible, it would seem sensible to provide a consistent interface for your Oracle binding. If not, it may be worth persuading him to generalise the interface. Then again, perhaps you knew about this already. Tim

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RFC: "Haskell for Perl Programmers" Presentation
by Shlomi Fish 29 Sep '03

29 Sep '03

At our local Perl Mongers club we have decided to hold a series of introductions to foreign language. Being a big fan of Haskell (except for any practical use), I wrote a "Haskell for Perl Programmers" intro: http://vipe.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/lecture/Perl/Haskell/slides/ It's more or less complete, but there may still be things to add or remove. Note that until now I did not write too much about the typing facilities of Haskell. I could, though. Regards, Shlomi Fish ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish shlomif(a)vipe.technion.ac.il Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/ An apple a day will keep a doctor away. Two apples a day will keep two doctors away. Falk Fish

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RE: haddock depencies to std-modules
by Simon Marlow 29 Sep '03

29 Sep '03

> I use haddock to create documentation. Everything is fine > except of the > references to standard modules. If I am using standardtypes > like Int or > String haddock wants to create crossrefs to these modules and > fails because > of missing "sourcecode". > > Is there a simple way to fix this? I've heard of interface > files to create > right refs to existing docs, but that doesnt work. Whats the > right way? One way is to use the Haddock interface files that are distributed with GHC. I haven't put any effort into making the process easy yet - ideally Haddock should consult GHC's package database to find the interface files, but it doesn't currently do this. You'll find Haddock interface files in the same location as the documentation when you install GHC (eg. /usr/share/ghc-<version>/html/base/base.haddock on a Linux system). Cheers, Simon

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haddock depencies to std-modules
by Patrick Scheibe 28 Sep '03

28 Sep '03

hello I use haddock to create documentation. Everything is fine except of the references to standard modules. If I am using standardtypes like Int or String haddock wants to create crossrefs to these modules and fails because of missing "sourcecode". Is there a simple way to fix this? I've heard of interface files to create right refs to existing docs, but that doesnt work. Whats the right way? Cheers Patrick

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(Off-topic) Question about categories
by Peter J. Veger 27 Sep '03

27 Sep '03

> I'm not sure if anyone mentioned the examples of a poset and a monoid as categories. > There is no "internal" structure in these. In the former, the objects are the > elements and there is a morphism between a and b iff a <= b. A functor then becomes > an order preserving map. In the latter, there is one object and the morphisms are > the elements. The identity is the identity map and if x and y are two elements / > morphisms then composition is xy. A functor is then a homomorphism. > Dominic. It is probably better to use the example of a preordered set. A Preordered set is a set with a relation <=, that is reflexive (x<=x) and transtive (x<=y & y<=z --> x<=z) (but not necessarily antisymmetric, x<=y & y<=x --> x=y as for a poset). If, in a preordered set, a is the unique morphism: x -> y and b the unique morphism: y -> x, then (writing x for the identity morphism id(x)) a.b=y and b.a=x Categorically, x and y are isomorphic. Concluding that x=y is not in the categorical language. Of course, you should distinguish the category of preorders (posets, monoids) from preorder (poset, monoid) as a category. As for literature, you have the classic: Saunders Mac Lane: Categories for the Working mathematician but the working computer scientist may prefer: Andrea Asperti and Guiseppe Longo: Categories, Types, and Structures (MIT Press, 1991) Michael Barr and Charles Wells: Category Theory for Computing Science (3rd ed., Les Publication CRM, 1999) idem, Introduction to Category Theory (www.let.uu.nl/esslli/Courses/barr-wells.html) Peter J. Veger, Best, Netherlands

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