This is a "porting" of BOHM1.1 to C99. No major modifications have been apported to the original source code, but for minor bug fixes. Please, be aware that this is an old code, essentially belonging to a pre-XML era. Anybody interested to contribute is welcome. Many improvements can be done starting from

• a new syntax (possibly Coq-inspired);
• a new (reentrant) parser;
• a more modular (possibly automatically generated) code;
• a type checker.

To cite this software, please use the following references:

Andrea Asperti, Cecilia Giovanetti, Andrea Naletto.
The Bologna Optimal Higher-Order Machine,
J. Funct. Program. v.6, n.6. pp 763--810, 1996,
doi = 10.1017/S0956796800001994

Andrea Asperti, Stefano Guerrini.
The Optimal Implementation of Functional Programming Languages.
Cambridge Tracts in Theoretical Computer Science, v.45,
Cambridge University Press, 1998, isbn = 9780521621120

About the current syntax, please be aware that applications always require parenthesis around them (left associative, of course), the rest is more or less as expected.

Overview

The Bologna Optimal Higher-order Machine (BOHM) is a prototype implementation of a variant of Lamping-Gonthier's optimal graph reduction technique relative to a lambda-calculus enriched with primitive data types (boolean, integers, and lists).

BOHM has been developed by A. Asperti, J. Chroboczek, C. Giovannetti, C. Laneve, P. Gruppioni and A. Naletto at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Bologna, Italy. The main authors can be reached by e-mail as asperti@cs.unibo.it.

The machine reduces terms to their weak head normal forms, according to a lazy-family strategy (i.e. it always reduces the whole redex-family of the leftmost outermost one, until a weak head normal form is reached).

This work has been partially supported by ESPRIT Basic Research Project 6454 - CONFER.

Installation

In order to compile BOHM, simply type:

make

or

make CC=gcc CFLAGS=-O2

if you want to use the GNU C compiler. This step will create an executable called bohm. You may always return to the original state of the distribution by typing

make clean

Usage

Calling bohm will open an interactive environment. You may now introduce a term ended by a double semicolon, that will be immediately reduced by the interpreter.

The source language is a sugared lambda-calculus enriched by primitive data types and basic operations over them:

• integers and mathematical operations;
• booleans and relational operations;
• lists and related operators;
• fixed point operator for recursive definitions.

More precisely, the syntax of expressions is given by the following grammar (out of date - no patterns, no tuples):

<expr> ::= <expr0>
   |  <expr> < <expr>
   |  <expr> == <expr>
   |  <expr> > <expr>
   |  <expr> <= <expr>
   |  <expr> >= <expr>
   |  <expr> <> <expr>
   |  <expr> + <expr>
   |  <expr> - <expr>
   |  <expr> * <expr>
   |  <expr> div <expr>
   |  <expr> mod <expr>
   |  - <expr>   	

<expr0> ::= true
   |  false
   |  <num\_const>
   |  <identifier>
   |  (<applist>)
   |  \ <identifier> . <expr>
   |  let <identifier> = <expr> in  <expr>
   |  rec <identifier> = <expr>
   |  if <expr> then  <expr> else  <expr>
   |  <expr> and  <expr>
   |  <expr> or  <expr>
   |  not <expr>
   |  <list>
   |  cons (<expr>,<expr>)
   |  head (<expr>)
   |  tail (<expr>)
   |  isnil (<expr>)

<list> ::= nil
   | [<exprlist>]

<exprlist> ::= (* empty *)
   | <expr>
   | <expr>,<exprlist>
   | <expr>|<expr>

<applist> ::= <expr>
   |  <applist> <expr0>

The <expr0> nonterminal represents an expression that cannot begin with a unary minus sign; it serves to avoid conflicts between f(-g) and (f-g). Remember to paranthesize arithmetic and boolean expressions when passing them as an argument to a function.

Furthermore, any string between (* and *) is treated as whitespace.

See the subdirectory examples for some examples of programs.

There is also a "global let" instuction, to build up a global environment. The syntax for such a global declaration is:

def x = e ;;

The exact semantics of the def declaration is subject to change; beware of name collisions!

The directive

#quit;;

terminates the session (you may also quit by typing ^D).

After compiling a term, you may visit its graph representation by typing the directive

#inspect;;

This enters in "inspection mode". You are at the root form of the term. To move along the graph, type the number of the port you wish to exit through: you will move to the next form connected with the previous one at the specified port. You may also inspect a previously defined term, by typing

#inspect term_name;;

You may also save it typing the directive

#save file_name;;

for the last term; otherwise for a generic term

#save "file_name" term_name;;

The directive

#load "file_name";;

allows the user to compile an external file file_name.

The directive

#option;;

allows you to choose a garbage strategie during execution, by presenting a series of menus containing the possible modalities. Such menus can also be obtained at the beginning of execution by calling bohm with option -s.

Garbage collection can also be explicitly invoked by the user by calling the directive

#garbage;;

The interpreter also displays some data about the computation, such as the dimension of the graph or the time required for reduction. These informations can be viewed by typing the directive

#info;;

and selecting the parameter of interest from the displayed menus. These menus can also be accessed by calling the program with the -i option.