---

title: "Code typesetting made simple" subtitle: "Pandoc filter" description: | To build this document use:

pandoc README.md -o README.pdf --filter=pandoc-filter-indent

date: | \today{=latex} abstract: | Program code has become a prime medium for communicating important algorithmic and mathematical ideas, as indicated by unwavering popularity of functional pearls and multitude blog posts using literate programming style to illustrate key ideas. However the literate programming systems are either appallingly complex or provide only limited functionality to emphasise code structure. We propose extremely simple code typesetting tool that is also a Pandoc filter, and can thus be used to improve comprehensibility of the code. It is also simple enough to be provided as a literate program within this submission. While it is processing Haskell code, we show how it can be easily adapted to typeset Python, Java or C/C++. author: Michał J. Gajda

- name: Michał J. Gajda

email: mjgajda@migamake.com

orcid: "0000-0001-7820-3906"

affiliation: 1

affiliation: institution: "Migamake Pte Ltd" email: mjgajda@migamake.com url: "https://migamake.com" review: true numbersections: true header-includes:

• |-2 \usepackage{graphicx} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{03B1}{\ensuremath{\alpha{}}}

prologue:

• |-2 \usepackage{graphicx} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{03B1}{\ensuremath{\alpha{}}} \renewcommand{\longeq}{\scalebox{1.7}[1]{=}}

---

Introduction

Program code has become a prime medium for communicating important algorithmic and mathematical ideas, as indicated by unwavering popularity of functional pearls and multitude blog posts using literate programming style to illustrate key ideas. However the literate code typesetting systems like lhs2TEX[@lhs2tex] are either appallingly complex, language-specific, or provide only limited functionality to emphasise code structure.

We propose a simple approach that can be used not just for code in languages with syntax defined by indentation-defined (like Haskell or Python), but also for code that has been formatted by indentation (like many Java and C/C++ projects mandate).

Algorithm

We use pandoc to process only code fragments in otherwise unprocessed literate program or article with code excerpts.

We detect layout boundaries from tokens:

(1) we note an column indent for each line^[This step is implemented using GHC API.], then

(2) mark a start of each operator (like ::, =, or >>=) by column. Our second step is that of transposing a list of Line = [(Column, Token)] into per-column list of indentations [(Line, Token)].

(3) If any token is present after more than a single space, we also mark its beginning as indentation boundary.

(4) After sorting columns by line number, we mark these columns that have a consistent presence along consecutive lines as indentation anchors.

(5) Additionally we mark the leftmost indent as a same indentation barrier as long as it follows the nesting order.

(6) For postprocessing, we escape the text according to target text processing engine syntax, translate common operators to their ligatures (see appendix), and output the text with layout boundaries.

We also plan to implement support for pointing to code fragments with TikZ target marks[@tikz] at this stage^[With syntax of {->p1-} standing for \tikzmark{p1}].

We also give user an option to align code fragments without regards for operators, in case the source programming language is not yet supported.

Integration

This solution is provided as a pandoc[@pandoc] filter so that it is integrated into standard Markdown-based processing engines with its numerous plugins that allow inclusion of GraphViz graphs, tables from .csv content or citation referencing.

Examples

Layout

The example input is here:

class Eq      a
   => Compare a where
  compare :: a -> a -> Ordering
  (>=)    :: a -> a -> Bool

After splitting input sections into separated code blocks and further by \n\n markers, we get the following layout boundaries detected.

cl.ass |Eq  .   . |a.
  . => |Comp.are. |a. wh.er.e
  |comp.are |:: |a. |-> |a |-> |Ordering
  |(>=).    |:: |a. |-> |a |-> |Bool

Here | marks an indentation boundary in a given line and column, whereas . is filler (no marker) to keep the columns indented.

First you sort by column (Data.List.sortBy), then within each column (Data.List.groupBy) you compare token type that starts there. As a result we see the following list of column boundaries^[Counting from column 1 and line 1.]:

[(3 -- column
 ,[3,4]) -- lines where it applies
 (7, -- column
 ,[1,2]) -- lines where it applies
,(11
 ,[3,4])
,(14
 ,[3,4])
,(15
 ,[1,2])
,(16,
  [3,4])
,(18,
  [3,4])
,(21,
  [3,4])
]

Another example input follows, to illustrate that we only take account of tokens that start after at least one space:

(\x -> x)

The following detection would be wrong:

|(|\|x |-|> |x)

Instead we detect layout boundaries as follows:

(\x |-> |x)

Generating \LaTeX{} or HTML output

When generating \LaTeX{} or HTML output, we simply assign a list of columns to each span of code tex in line. This can be implemented using multicolumn marking in both output languages. Consider the above example with columns numbered at starting character:

cl.ass |Eq  .   . |a.
  . => |Comp.are. |a. wh.er.e
  |comp.are |:: |a. |-> |a |-> |Ordering
  |(>=).    |:: |a. |-> |a |-> |Bool
  1    2    3   4 5 6   7  8   9

Alignment assignment is here:

cl.ass >Eq  .   . |a.
  . => >Comp.are. |a. wh.er.e
  |comp.are |:: |a. |-> |a |-> ^Ordering
  |(>=).    |:: |a. |-> |a |-> ^Bool

Note the use of > instead of | at the boundary of right aligned block. We also use ^ at the right boundary of center-aligned.

That means that we produce code like this for the first line:

\multicolumn{2}{r}{class}
\multicolumn{2}{l}{Eq}
\multicolumn{6}{l}{a}

General syntax of \multicolumn^[See Overleaf tutorial if you do not know how \LaTeX{} tables work.] has three arguments, each enclosed with braces ({}):

1. Number of columns in the cell, for example {2} or {6}.
2. Alignment of text in the cell:
   • {l} for left,
   • {r} right,
   • {c} for centered.
3. The text in the cell. For example {class}

First two columns end at >. So \multicolumn has parameter {2} to indicate that the cell spans two columns (just like colspan="2" in HTML.) Eq spans another two columns (3rd and 4th column) so again it is parameter {2}.

You basically compute column span this way:

• Start a new column with colspan=1 for other column markers (< and |)
• Add +1 to the current column span for every ..

The third column would have code like this:

\multicolumns{1}{l}{ }
\multicolumn{2}{l}{compare}
\multicolumn{1}{c}{::}
\multicolumn{2}{l}{a}
\multicolumn{1}{c}{->}
\multicolumn{1}{l}{a}
\multicolumn{1}{c}{->}
\multicolumn{1}{l}{Ordering}

That is the class takes columns 0 and 1, Eq takes columns 2 and 3, and a goes from column 4 til the end in column 10.

This can be easily converted to HTML table:

<td colspan="2" style="text-align:right">class</td>
<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left" >Eq</td>
<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left" >a</td>

Pandoc filter interface

Main executable is a pandoc filter. You get pandoc input stream, and replace CodeBlock blocks there with Raw "latex" \LaTeX{} blocks. It is these block elements of ADT that should contain the \LaTeX{} code Pandoc will build the document for you, and do it better than you would. Below is a modified example from pandoc documentation for making a pandoc filter executable:

module Main where

import Text.Pandoc.JSON

main :: IO ()
main = toJSONFilter blockFormatter

blockFormatter :: Block -> Block
blockFormatter (CodeBlock attrs content) | isHaskell attrs =
  haskellCodeFormatter :: Text -> Text
  Raw "latex" $ haskellCodeFormatter content
blockFormatter  x = x

In the executable above, you write haskellCodeFormatter function that takes Haskell code, and returns \LaTeX{} code fragment like this:

\begin{array}
\multicol{2}{..}
\end{array}

Deciding between output formats

We need to check Pandoc meta before issuing walk in order to check what is the output format. In case it is \LaTeX{} or PDF, then we produce \LaTeX{} raw code fragments. In case output format is any other, then we produce HTML table.

Passing options to the filter

There are three ways that pandoc filter should accept the options:

1. On the command line --debug.
2. As pandoc metadata elements (YAML at the start of the document): pandoc-filter-indent: debug=true
3. As attributes of the code block: ```{.haskell debug=true}

All options should be available through all three option channels. See tutorial on optparse-applicative to define CLI options. To allow YAML option definition, add FromJSON instance. For concatenating options from different sources use this tutorial on option merging.

There are following options that will be processed:

• lexer -- select a language lexer:
  • haskell -- default lexer, GHC
  • indent -- indent only lexer: table column starts when whitespace characters at beginning of the line ends
  • spaces -- space-only lexer: table column starts at the end of block of two or more whitespace characters
  • python3 -- Python lexer (see below in @sec:python-lexer)
• debug -- add option that shows table columns (for debugging layout)
• underbar -- do not escape _, but instead use \LaTeX{}/HTML subscript til the end of the token: method_agile becomes method_{agile} in \LaTeX{}, x_i_j becomes x_{i,j} in \LaTeX{}
• table alignment (\LaTeX{} output only):
  • array -- use array environment, the default
  • polytable -- use polytable environment
• code alignment:
  • center environment -- default for array
  • left justify entire code environment -- for convenience when mentioning code inline.
• output mode -- is selected by the pandoc metadata only
  • latex -- Raw "latex" for tex, pdf, or beamer output
  • html -- Raw "html" for html, slidy, slideous, s5, or revealjs outputs
  • table -- for all other outputs we produce a Table block

Appendix: operator symbol replacement

Code should be given a table of possible token replacements depending on type of the symbol.

1. We implement greek unicode replacements for single-character type variables:

(TypeVar "a") -> α

2. We also replace the common operators with \LaTeX{} symbols commonly used for this purpose:

Input token	\LaTeX{} code	Rendering
Operator "="	\scalebox{1.7}[1]{=}	\(\scalebox{1.7}[1]{=}\)
Operator "<>"	\diamond	\(\diamond{}\)
Operator ">="	\geq	\(\geq{}\)
Operator "<="	\geq	\(\leq{}\)
Operator "/="	\ne	\(\ne{}\)
Operator "==>"	\Rightarrow	\(\Rightarrow{}\)
Operator "\/"	\ne	\(\bigvee{}\)
Operator "/\"	\ne	\(\bigwedge{}\)
Operator "."	\cdot	\(\cdot\)
Operator "elem"	\in	\(\in\)
Operator ">>"	\gg	\(\gg\)
Operator "<<"	\ll	\(\ll\)
Operator "~="	\approx	\(\approx\)
Operator "~"	\sim	\(\sim\)
Operator "<->"	\leftrightarrow	\(\leftrightarrow{}\)
Operator ">>>"	\ggg	\(\ggg{}\)
Operator "<<<"	\lll	\(\lll{}\)
`Operator "		"`
Operator ">>="	\ne	\(\gg\joinrel=\)
`Operator "	>"`	\triangleright
Operator "-<"	\prec	\(\prec{}\)
Operator "<-"	\gets	\(\gets{}\)
`Operator "	"`	\vert{}
Operator "\\"	\setminus	\(\setminus{}\)
Var "bottom"	\bot	\(\bot\)
Var "top"	\top	\(\top\)
Var "not"	\neg	\(\neg\)
Var "mempty"	\emptyset{}	\(\emptyset{}\)
Var "forall"	\forall{}	\(\forall{}\)

3. For HTML we only replace these with either HTML entities that indicate these symbols:

  (Operator ">") -> >

Unreplaced content should be escaped.

In order to allow easy implementation we will need alternate debugging executable lexer that will just print the output of the lexer from the code on the input:

[Operator "=", Var "mempty", ...]

For finding the right symbol replacements use:

1. Guide to lhs2TeX is a good reference on how to format Haskell code symbols. See code examples laid out in this document. I expect you to find the mapping for the most commonly used operators:

   • lambda sign token: \ shown as \(\lambda\),
   • equals sign =,
   • function type ->,
   • type sign ::,
   • and operators in standard type classes:
     • Control.Monad: >>=, >>, >=>
     • Control.Alternative: <|>
     • Control.Functor: <$>
     • Control.Applicative: <*>, <$>, <*, and *>
     • Data.Semigroup.<> shown as \(\diamond\)
     • Data.Ord: /=, >=, <=, >, <
     • Num: +, -, *, /,
     • System.FilePath: </>, <.>
     • Test.QuickCheck: ==> shown as \(\Rightarrow\)
     • Control.Arrow: >>>, ***, &&&, <+>, ^<<, <<^, >>^, ^>>
     • Control.Lens: ^., ^.=.
     • arrow notation: -<, >-.
   • convert single-letter type variables (and only type variables) to greek letters:
     • a to \alpha shown as \(\alpha\)
     • b to \beta shown as \(\beta\)
     • etc.

2. The Comprehensive LATEX Symbol List is a good reference of \LaTeX{} symbol names. See section 3. Mathematical symbols.

Formatting different token types

Since we want to use \begin{array} environment in \LaTeX{}, we should encompass the token characters with different \LaTeX{} operators.

• variables with \textrm{var}
• type variables with \mathit{tyvar}
• others with \textrm{} as well
• Haskell keywords with \textit This mapping should be easily changed in a single place in code.

Please let me know if there is a question about any other token types!

Formatting inline code

To format inline code we lookup inline-code in YAML metadata, and append it to attributes of each inline code fragment. By default it is haskell.

Safe escaping

In order to safely escape strings, we keep token type next to original token text over entire pipeline until rendering of code fragment as raw \LaTeX{} or HTML:

type Token... = (MyTok, Text, ...)

Pandoc filter connection

Using Text.Pandoc.Walk interface we can easily implement the filter.

Filter main is a function like:

import Text.Pandoc.JSON
import Text.Pandoc.Walk

main :: IO ()
main = toJSONFilter (ourPandocWalk :: Walkable [a] Pandoc => ToJSONFilter (a -> IO [a])

Then we make ourPandocWalk to be a function that:

1. Matches Meta to check if we are targetting \LaTeX{} or HTML.
2. Finds CodeBlock and leaves everything else as-is.
3. Generates \table as RawBlock of \LaTeX{} output.

Options shall be parsed per CodeBlock. First parameter to each CodeBlock are attributes (Attr). These attributes should be parsed as options

Option attributes

Per-CodeBlock attributes to be handled:

• lexer=indent or lexer=haskell
• ignore CodeBlock that does not have attribute:
  • lexer=
  • or .haskell

Global Meta attributes to be handled:

• output format:
  • \LaTeX{} or PDF -- produce \LaTeX{} RawBlock
  • HTML -- produce HTML RawBlock
  • or all others -- produce Table

TikZ marks

TikZ marks are useful for pointing to fragments of the generated code.

You should just look for comments with syntax: {->markName-} and convert them to a raw \LaTeX{} string \tikzmark{markName}.

For HTML, it generates <span id="markName" /> which you can then draw to with a convenient JavaScript.

Alternate lexers

Please note that using alternate lexers disables token replacement! This is important, since the token replacement to \LaTeX{} special symbols is language-specific.

Indent only

Indent only is simplest to implement, just start a column after initial whitespace in each line ends.

Space only

There should be an option to use alternate lexer. It is driven solely by indentation.

1. Cell break is delimited by a starting indent.
2. Or column of consecutive spaces that occur in more than one line, and at least one line has at least one more space before it.

Example input:

# n is size of heap
def heapify(arr, n, i):
    largest = i  # Initialize largest as root
    l = 2 * i + 1     # left = 2*i + 1
    r = 2 * i + 2     # right = 2*i + 2

Example column division:

# n is size of heap
def |heapify(arr, n, i).:
    |largest = i  # Ini.tialize largest as root
    |l = 2 * i + 1     |# left = 2*i + 1
    |r = 2 * i + 2     |# right = 2*i + 2

For highlighting we will later connect skylighting like Pandoc does natively.

Python3 lexer {#sec:python-lexer}

Very easy to support, just add package language-python to dependencies. The token type is different, but we only ever compare it by equality.

Used tools

Finding Haskell tokens

We find Haskell tokens with GHC-lib that uses GHC parser itself. For simplicity we use ghc-syntax-highlighter We readd locations after the fact, since it gives you pure tokens with text and spaces, or pure locations (without text).

tokenizeHaskell :: Text -> Maybe [(Token, Text)]

\LaTeX{} output

For escaping text in TeX we use HaTeX[@hatex]

We render tables inline tables with multicolumn (not polytable like lhs2TeX[@lhs2tex] does.)

We do not use HaTeX table support yet.

Debugging

Pandoc can automatically detect output format. In order to get \LaTeX{} and HTML output just run:

pandoc input.md --filter=pandoc-filter-indent -o output.tex
pandoc input.md --filter=pandoc-filter-indent -o output.pdf

For debugging indentation use text output format:

pandoc input.md --filter=pandoc-filter-indent -o output.txt

In text mode, it renders indent boundaries as | and ^.

Note that the filter does not touch the text outside code blocks. It can add necessary \LaTeX{} headers or HTML styles in meta headers-include.