204 research outputs found
Non-linear Pattern Matching with Backtracking for Non-free Data Types
Non-free data types are data types whose data have no canonical forms. For
example, multisets are non-free data types because the multiset has
two other equivalent but literally different forms and .
Pattern matching is known to provide a handy tool set to treat such data types.
Although many studies on pattern matching and implementations for practical
programming languages have been proposed so far, we observe that none of these
studies satisfy all the criteria of practical pattern matching, which are as
follows: i) efficiency of the backtracking algorithm for non-linear patterns,
ii) extensibility of matching process, and iii) polymorphism in patterns.
This paper aims to design a new pattern-matching-oriented programming
language that satisfies all the above three criteria. The proposed language
features clean Scheme-like syntax and efficient and extensible pattern matching
semantics. This programming language is especially useful for the processing of
complex non-free data types that not only include multisets and sets but also
graphs and symbolic mathematical expressions. We discuss the importance of our
criteria of practical pattern matching and how our language design naturally
arises from the criteria. The proposed language has been already implemented
and open-sourced as the Egison programming language
Basic Pattern Matching Calculi: a Fresh View on Matching Failure
Abstract. We propose pattern matching calculi as a refinement of λ-calculus that integrates mechanisms appropriate for fine-grained mod-elling of non-strict pattern matching. Compared with the functional rewriting strategy usually employed to define the operational semantics of pattern matching in non-strict functional programming languages like Haskell or Clean, our pattern matching calculi achieve the same effects using simpler and more local rules. The main device is to embed into expressions the separate syntactic cate-gory of matchings; the resulting language naturally encompasses pattern guards and Boolean guards as special cases. By allowing a confluent reduction system and a normalising strategy, these pattern matching calculi provide a new basis for operational semantics of non-strict programming languages and also for implemen-tations.
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