I've been using the creation of a regular expression engine as an ongoing project to learn Haskell. Last night I created the newest iteration. My love for the irrefutable pattern can be found in the definition of the rexn ( apply repetition to extracted nodes ) function below. /snip rexn ns pps = let ( ~( xs , rps ) , ~( ~( nxs ) , ~( rxs , rrps ) ) ) = ( exn nxs pps , case rps of ('?':'?':rr) -> ( ( ns ) , ( ns ++ xs , rr ) ) ('?':rr) -> ( ( ns ) , ( xs ++ ns , rr ) ) /snip Beautiful, beautiful lazy execution and irrefutable pattern matching. The data flow is able to easily twist in and out of functions, even as an argument to the function call that creates it. Is this kind of usage normal? Any and all comments, suggestions, refutations, and criticisms are welcome. -- regular expression engine -- (c) 2008 michael speer import Char ( isSpace ) -- import Debug.Trace ( trace ) xor :: Bool -> Bool -> Bool xor True a = not a xor False a = a data RxToken = RxStart -- matchable start of target string | RxChar Char -- a literal character to match | RxBound -- inserted wherever alphanums touch whitespace | RxEnd -- matchable end of target string | RxEOF -- an additional token to push through to catch anything trying for RxEnd -- RxEOF is never matched. deriving ( Show ) rxTokenize tts = RxStart : case tts of [] -> RxEnd : RxEOF : [] tts@(t:_) -> case not $ isSpace t of True -> RxBound : rxt tts False -> rxt tts where rxt (t:[]) | not $ isSpace t = RxChar t : RxBound : RxEnd : RxEOF : [] | otherwise = RxChar t : RxEnd : RxEOF : [] rxt (t:ts@(t':_)) | isSpace t `xor` isSpace t' = RxChar t : RxBound : rxt ts | otherwise = RxChar t : rxt ts data RxTransform = RxTransform ( RxNode -> RxToken -> [ RxNode ] ) | RxNullTransform data RxNode = RxActive { rxTransforms :: [RxTransform] , rxMatched :: String , rxNumSubs :: Integer , rxSubExprs :: [ String ] } | RxComplete { rxMatched :: String , rxNumSubs :: Integer , rxSubExprs :: [ String ] } instance Show RxNode where show (RxComplete matched _ _) = "<rx|matched:[" ++ matched ++ "]>" data RxDepth = RxTop | RxSub deriving ( Show ) rxCompile pps = let ( xs , rps ) = oexn [success] RxTop pps in case length rps of 0 -> RxActive { rxTransforms = xs , rxMatched = [] , rxNumSubs = 0 , rxSubExprs = [] } _ -> error $ "Not all of pattern consumed : remains : " ++ rps where -- or together different expression sections -- (a|b|c) oexn ns RxTop [] = ( ns , [] ) oexn _ RxSub [] = error "Pattern ended while still in sub expression" oexn ns d pps = let ( ~( xs , rps ) , ~( nxs , nrps ) ) = ( aexn ns pps , case rps of ('|':rr) -> let ( inxs , irps ) = oexn ns d rr in ( xs ++ inxs , irps ) (')':rr) -> case d of RxTop -> error "Erroneous close parenthesis in pattern " RxSub -> ( xs , rr ) [] -> case d of RxTop -> ( xs , [] ) RxSub -> error "End of pattern while still in sub expression" ) in ( nxs , nrps ) -- and together extracted nodes in a given expression segment -- abd?dfs aexn ns pps = let ( ~( xs , rps ) , ~( nxs , nrps ) ) = ( rexn nxs pps , case rps of ('|':_) -> ( ns , rps ) (')':_) -> ( ns , rps ) [] -> ( ns , rps ) _ -> aexn ns rps ) in ( xs , nrps ) -- replication application - weee! rexn ns pps = let ( ~( xs , rps ) , ~( ~( nxs ) , ~( rxs , rrps ) ) ) = ( exn nxs pps , case rps of ('?':'?':rr) -> ( ( ns ) , ( ns ++ xs , rr ) ) ('?':rr) -> ( ( ns ) , ( xs ++ ns , rr ) ) ('*':'?':rr) -> ( ( ns ++ xs ) , ( ns ++ xs , rr ) ) ('*':rr) -> ( ( xs ++ ns ) , ( xs ++ ns , rr ) ) ('+':'?':rr) -> ( ( ns ++ xs ) , ( xs , rr ) ) ('+':rr) -> ( ( xs ++ ns ) , ( xs , rr ) ) _ -> ( ( ns ) , ( xs , rps ) ) ) in ( rxs , rrps ) -- extract node ( including an entire subexpression as a single node ) exn _ ('?':_) = error "Bad question mark operator" exn _ ('*':_) = error "Bad splat operator" exn _ ('+':_) = error "Bad plus sign operator" exn ns ('(':ps) = oexn ns RxSub ps exn ns (p:ps) = ( [ RxTransform ( \rxn k -> case k of (RxChar c) -> if c == p then [ RxActive { rxTransforms = ns , rxMatched = c : rxMatched rxn , rxNumSubs = rxNumSubs rxn , rxSubExprs = rxSubExprs rxn } ] else [] (RxStart) -> [rxn] (RxBound) -> [rxn] _ -> [] ) ] , ps ) exn ns [] = error "can this be reached?" success = RxTransform ( \ rxn k -> [ RxComplete { rxMatched = reverse $ rxMatched rxn , rxNumSubs = rxNumSubs rxn , rxSubExprs = map reverse $ rxSubExprs rxn } ] ) rxExec n tts = iexec [n] (rxTokenize tts) where iexec (win@(RxComplete _ _ _ ):_) _ = Just win iexec [] _ = Nothing iexec nns (k:ks) = iexec ( concatMap ( \n -> case n of (RxComplete _ _ _) -> [n] a@(RxActive _ _ _ _) -> concatMap (\xf -> case xf of (RxTransform f) -> f a k (RxNullTransform) -> [] ) (rxTransforms a) ) nns ) ks main = do print $ rxTokenize "this is a test" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "hello|world") "hello" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "hello|world") "world" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "abcde|ab") "abcd" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "ab?c") "ac" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "ab?c") "abc" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "ab*c") "ac" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "ab*c") "abc" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "ab*c") "abbbc" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "ab+c") "ac" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "ab+c") "abc" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "ab+c") "abbbbbc" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "(a|b)+") "aaabbbabaaababaaabbbabbaba" print $ rxExec (rxCompile "abc|") "zyx"