Hi folks, Inspired by Ralf's post, I thought I'd just GADTize a dependently typed program I wrote in 2001. Wolfgang Jeltsch wrote:
Now lets consider using an algebraic datatype for regexps:
data RegExp = Empty | Single Char | RegExp :+: RegExp | RegExp :|: RegExpt | Iter RegExp
Manipulating regular expressions now becomes easy and safe – you are just not able to create "syntactically incorrect regular expressions" since during runtime you don't deal with syntax at all.
A fancier variation on the same theme...
data RegExp :: * -> * -> * where Zero :: RegExp tok Empty One :: RegExp tok () Check :: (tok -> Bool) -> RegExp tok tok Plus :: RegExp tok a -> RegExp tok b -> RegExp tok (Either a b) Mult :: RegExp tok a -> RegExp tok b -> RegExp tok (a, b) Star :: RegExp tok a -> RegExp tok [a]
data Empty
The intuition is that a RegExp tok output is a regular expression explaining how to parse a list of tok as an output. Here, Zero is the regexp which does not accept anything, One accepts just the empty string, Plus is choice and Mult is sequential composition; Check lets you decide whether you like a single token. Regular expressions may be seen as an extended language of polynomials with tokens for variables; this parser works by repeated application of the remainder theorem.
parse :: RegExp tok x -> [tok] -> Maybe x parse r [] = empty r parse r (t : ts) = case divide t r of Div q f -> return f `ap` parse q ts
Example *RegExp> parse (Star (Mult (Star (Check (== 'a'))) (Star (Check (== 'b'))))) "abaabaaabbbb" Just [("a","b"),("aa","b"),("aaa","bbbb")] The 'remainder' explains if a regular expression accepts the empty string, and if so, how. The Star case is a convenient underapproximation, ruling out repeated empty values.
empty :: RegExp tok a -> Maybe a empty Zero = mzero empty One = return () empty (Check _) = mzero empty (Plus r1 r2) = (return Left `ap` empty r1) `mplus` (return Right `ap` empty r2) empty (Mult r1 r2) = return (,) `ap` empty r1 `ap` empty r2 empty (Star _) = return []
The 'quotient' explains how to parse the tail of the list, and how to recover the meaning of the whole list from the meaning of the tail.
data Division tok x = forall y. Div (RegExp tok y) (y -> x)
Here's how it's done. I didn't expect to need scoped type variables, but I did...
divide :: tok -> RegExp tok x -> Division tok x divide t Zero = Div Zero naughtE divide t One = Div Zero naughtE divide t (Check p) | p t = Div One (const t) | otherwise = Div Zero naughtE divide t (Plus (r1 :: RegExp tok a) (r2 :: RegExp tok b)) = case (divide t r1, divide t r2) of (Div (q1 :: RegExp tok a') (f1 :: a' -> a), Div (q2 :: RegExp tok b') (f2 :: b' -> b)) -> Div (Plus q1 q2) (f1 +++ f2) divide t (Mult r1 r2) = case (empty r1, divide t r1, divide t r2) of (Nothing, Div q1 f1, _) -> Div (Mult q1 r2) (f1 *** id) (Just x1, Div q1 f1, Div q2 f2) -> Div (Plus (Mult q1 r2) q2) (either (f1 *** id) (((,) x1) . f2)) divide t (Star r) = case (divide t r) of Div q f -> Div (Mult q (Star r)) (\ (y, xs) -> (f y : xs))
Bureaucracy.
(***) :: (a -> b) -> (c -> d) -> (a, c) -> (b, d) (f *** g) (a, c) = (f a, g c)
(+++) :: (a -> b) -> (c -> d) -> Either a c -> Either b d (f +++ g) (Left a) = Left (f a) (f +++ g) (Right c) = Right (g c)
naughtE :: Empty -> x naughtE = undefined
It's not the most efficient parser in the world (doing some algebraic simplification on the fly wouldn't hurt), but it shows the sort of stuff you can do. Have fun Conor