Text.Cassette

The combinators of this library are all pairs of functions going in opposite directions. These pairs are called cassettes, sporting two tracks (the two functions), one of which is read is one direction, the other of which (accessed by flipping the cassette) is read in the opossite direction.

Here is an example specification for the lambda-calculus:

 varL = K7 leadout leadin where
   leadout k k' s x = k (\ s _ -> k' s x) s (Var x)
   leadin k k' s t@(Var x)  = k (\ s _ -> k' s t) s x
   leadin k k' s t          = k' s t

 absL = K7 leadout leadin where
   leadout k k' s t' x = k (\ s _ -> k' s t' x) s (Lam x t')
   leadin k k' s t@(Lam x t)  = k (\ s _ _ -> k' s t) s t x
   leadin k k' s t            = k' s t

 appL = K7 leadout leadin where
   leadout k s t2 t1 = k (\ s _ -> k' s t2 t1) s (App t1 t2)
   leadin k k' s t@(App t1 t2)  = k (\ s _ _ -> k' s t) s t2 t1
   leadin k k' s t            = k' s t

 parens p = char '(' <> p <> char ')'

 term :: PP Term
 term  =   varL --> ident
       <|> absL --> char '\' <> ident <> term
       <|> appL --> parens (term <> sepSpace <> term)

From this single specification, we can extract a parser,

 parse term :: PP Term -> String -> Maybe Term

and also a pretty printer,

 pretty term :: PP Term -> Term -> Maybe String

Specifications are built from primitive and derived combinators, which affect the input string in some way. For each constructor of each datatype, we need to write a lead, which is a pair of a construction function and a destruction function. Leads are pure combinators that do not affect the input string. By convention, we suffix their name with L.

Internally, the primitive combinators are written in CPS. Leads also need to be written in this style, being primitive. They can, however, be automatically generated for every datatype using some Template Haskell hackery (in a separate package). A number of leads for standard datatypes are defined in the Lead module.

Documentation

module Text.Cassette.Prim

module Text.Cassette.Lead

module Text.Cassette.Combinator

module Text.Cassette.Char

module Text.Cassette.Number