extensible-effects-2.5.0.0: An Alternative to Monad Transformers

Control.Eff.Cut

Description

An example of non-trivial interaction of effects, handling of two effects together Non-determinism with control (cut) For the explanation of cut, see Section 5 of Hinze ICFP 2000 paper. Hinze suggests expressing cut in terms of cutfalse:

= return () mplus cutfalse
where
cutfalse :: m a

satisfies the following laws:

 cutfalse >>= k  = cutfalse              (F1)
cutfalse | m    = cutfalse              (F2)

(note: m mplus cutfalse is different from cutfalse mplus m). In other words, cutfalse is the left zero of both bind and mplus.

Hinze also introduces the operation call :: m a -> m a that delimits the effect of cut: call m executes m. If the cut is invoked in m, it discards only the choices made since m was called. Hinze postulates the axioms of call:

 call false = false                          (C1)
call (return a | m) = return a | call m     (C2)
call (m | cutfalse) = call m                (C3)
call (lift m >>= k) = lift m >>= (call . k) (C4)

call m behaves like m except any cut inside m has only a local effect, he says.

Hinze noted a problem with the "mechanical" derivation of backtracing monad transformer with cut: no axiom specifying the interaction of call with bind; no way to simplify nested invocations of call.

We use exceptions for cutfalse Therefore, the law cutfalse >>= k = cutfalse is satisfied automatically since all exceptions have the above property.

Synopsis

# Documentation

data CutFalse Source #

Constructors

 CutFalse

call :: forall a r. Member Choose r => Eff (Exc CutFalse ': r) a -> Eff r a Source #

The interpreter -- it is like reify . reflect with a twist. Compare this implementation with the huge implementation of call in Hinze 2000 (Figure 9). Each clause corresponds to the axiom of call or cutfalse. All axioms are covered.

The code clearly expresses the intuition that call watches the choice points of its argument computation. When it encounteres a cutfalse request, it discards the remaining choicepoints. It completely handles CutFalse effects but not non-determinism