This Scheme library provides the users with macros for pattern matching against non-free data types. This pattern-matching facility is originally proposed in this paper and implemented in the Egison programming language.
We have tested this library on Gauche 0.9.6.
Draft paper for this Scheme library (presented at Scheme Workshop 2019): github.com/egisatoshi/macro-paper
Non-free data types are data types whose data have no standard forms. For example, multisets are non-free data types because the multiset {a,b,b} has two other equivalent but literally different forms {b,a,b} and {b,b,a}. This library provides the users with a pattern-matching facility for these non-free data types.
For example, the following program pattern-matches a list (1 2 5 9 4) as a multiset.
This pattern matches if the target collection contains pairs of elements in sequence.
A non-linear pattern is effectively used for expressing the pattern.
(load "./egison.scm")
(match-all '(1 2 5 9 4) (Multiset Integer) [(cons x (cons `(+ x 1) _)) x])
; (1 4)
match-all returns a list of all the results.
We provide two types of match-all that return a list and a stream, respectively.
egison.scm provides the list version.
stream-egison.scm provides the stream version.
match-all of stream-egison.scm supports pattern matching with infinitely many results.
(use math.prime)
(use util.stream)
(load "./stream-egison.scm")
(define stream-primes (stream-filter bpsw-prime? (stream-iota -1)))
(stream->list
(stream-take
(match-all stream-primes (List Integer)
[(join _ (cons p (cons `(+ p 2) _)))
`(,p ,(+ p 2))])
10))
; ((3 5) (5 7) (11 13) (17 19) (29 31) (41 43) (59 61) (71 73) (101 103) (107 109))
For more examples, please see the following samples.
- The basic list processing functions defined in pattern-matching-oriented programming style
- Poker hands
- SAT solver (Davis-Putnam Algorithm)
- SAT solver (CDCL)
Here is the formal syntax of match-all, match-first, and the patterns.
e, M, p, and x are a metavariable that denotes an expression, matcher, pattern, and symbol, respectively.
(match-all e M [p e*]*)
(match-first e M [p e*]*)
p = x (pattern variable)
| `e (value pattern)
| '(p*) (tuple pattern)
| (c p*) (inductive pattern)
| (and p*) (and-pattern)
| (or p*) (or-pattern)
| (not p) (not-pattern)
| (later p) (later pattern)
match-all is a syntax construct for pattern matching provided by our library.
match-all takes a target and match-clauses as the match expressions of the other functional programming languages.
However, match-all has two characteristic parts: (i) its name is match-"all", and (ii) it takes an additional argument a matcher as its second argument.
First, match-all evaluates the body for all the pattern-matching results and returns a list of the evaluation results.
This is the reason of the name "match-all".
The following sample returns a list that contains one result (1 (2 3)).
The reason is because cons for the list has only one decomposition.
(match-all '(1 2 3) (List Integer) [(cons x xs) `(,x ,xs)])
; ((1 (2 3)))
Second, a matcher is a special object in our pattern-matching system to specify the method for interpreting patterns.
If we change the matcher, the pattern-matching result also changes.
In the following sample, we changed the matcher from (List Integer) to (Multiset Integer).
As the result, the pattern-matching results changes from ((1 (2 3))) to ((1 (2 3)) (2 (1 3)) (3 (1 2))).
The reason is because cons for the multiset has multiple decompositions since the multiset ignores the order of the elements in a collection.
(match-all '(1 2 3) (Multiset Integer) [(cons x xs) `(,x ,xs)])
; ((1 (2 3)) (2 (1 3)) (3 (1 2)))
A matcher is defined in Scheme in our library. Users can define their own matchers in Scheme.
The match-first is similar to the traditional match expression; it evaluates the body of the first match clause whose pattern matches with the target.
(match-first '(1 2 3) (Multiset Integer) [(cons x xs) `(,x ,xs)])
; (1 (2 3))
We do not use the name match to avoid the name conflict with Wright's matchbecause Wright's match plays fundamental role for defining a user-defined matcher.
The only difference between match-first and the traditional match expression is match-first takes a matcher.
Our pattern-matching system supports non-linear patterns. A non-linear pattern is a pattern that allows multiple occurrences of identical pattern variables in a pattern. Non-linear pattern is especially useful for pattern matching against non-free data types. For example, we can write a pattern that matches if the target collection contains a pair of identical elements.
A pattern that is prepend with ` is called a value-pattern.
Value patterns match the target if the target is equal to the content of the value pattern.
The expression after ` is evaluated referring to the value bound to the pattern variables that appear left-side of the patterns.
(match-all '(1 2 5 9 4) (Multiset Integer) [(cons x (cons `(+ x 1) _)) x])
; (1 4)
Tuple patterns are represented by prepending ' to a list of patterns.
Each element of a tuple pattern is pattern-matched with the corresponding element of a target list using the corresponding element of a matcher list as a matcher.
(match-all '[1 2] `[,Integer ,Integer] ['[x y] `(,x ,y)]) ; ((1 2))
(match-all '[1 2 3] `[,Integer ,Integer ,Integer] ['[x y z] `(,x ,y ,z)]) ; ((1 2 3))
Preppending ' is important to distinguish a tuple pattern from a inductive pattern.
For example, '[x y] cannot be distinguished from an constructor pattern whose constructor is x if ' is not prepended.
An or-pattern matches if one of the argument patterns matches the target.
(match-all '(1 2 3) (List Integer) [(cons (or `1 `10) _) "OK"])
; ("OK")
An and-pattern matches if all the argument patterns match the target.
(match-all '(1 2 3) (List Integer) [(cons (and `1 x) _) x])
; (1)
A not-pattern matches if the argument pattern does not match the target.
(match-all '(1 2 3) (List Integer) [(cons x (not (cons `x _))) x])
; (1)
A later pattern is used to change the order of the pattern-matching process. Basically, our pattern-matching system processes patterns from left to right in order. However, we sometimes want this order, for example, to refer to the value bound to the right side of pattern variables. A later pattern can be used for such purpose.
(match-all '(1 1 2 3) (List Integer) [(cons (later `x) (cons x _)) x])
; (1)
Matchers are defined as a function that takes a pattern and target, and returns next matching atoms.
For example, Multiset is defined as follows.
(Multiset is a function that takes and returns a matcher.)
(define Multiset
(lambda (M)
(lambda (p t)
(match p
(('cons px py)
(map (lambda (xy) `((,px ,M ,(car xy)) (,py ,(Multiset M) ,(cadr xy))))
(match-all t (List M)
[(join hs (cons x ts)) `(,x ,(append hs ts))])))
(pvar
`(((,pvar Something ,t))))
))))
Something is the only built-in matcher.
processMState has a branch for Something.
(define Something 'Something)
Match-all is transformed into an application of map whose arguments uses extract-pattern-variables and pattern-match as follows.
It allows us to implement match-all without using eval.
(match-all t M [p e])
->
`(map (lambda ,(extract-pattern-variables p) ,e) ,(pattern-match p M t))
extract-pattern-variables takes a pattern and returns a list of pattern variables that appear in the pattern.
The order of the pattern variables corresponds with the order they appeared in the pattern.
pattern-match returns a list of pattern-matching results.
The pattern-matching results consist of values that are going to bound to the pattern variables returned by extract-pattern-variables.
The order of the values in the pattern-matching results must correspond with the order of pattern variables returned by extract-pattern-variables.
Value patterns are transformed into lambda expressions using rewrite-pattern inside the macro.
For example, (join _ (cons x (join _ (cons ,x _)))) is transformed into (join _ (cons x (join _ (cons (val ,(lambda (x) x)) _)))).
We can implement loop patterns using the same method in the Egison interpreter. It will extend the expressiveness of patterns very much.
We can apply the method for implementing this macro for the other languages.
We have avoided to use the eval function in this implementation for that purpose.
Currently, we are working to implement a Haskell extension for this pattern-matching facility.