Generic control operators, such as fold, can be generated from algebraic type definitions. The class of types to which these techniques are applicable is generalized to all algebraic types definable in languages such as Miranda and ML, i.e. mutually recursive sums-of-products with tuples and function types. Several other useful generic operators, also applicable to every type in this class, also are described. A normalization algorithm which automatically calculates improvements to programs expressed in a language based upon folds is described. It reduces programs, expressed using fold as the exclusive control operator, to a canonical form. Based upon a generic promotion theorem, the algorithm is facilitated by the explicit structure of fold programs rather than using an analysis phase to search for implicit structure. Canonical programs are minimal in the sense that they contain the fewest number of fold operations. Because of this property, the normalization algorithm has important ...

We revisit the work of Paterson and of Meijer & Hutton, which describes how to construct catamorphisms for recursive datatype definitions that embed contravariant occurrences of the type being defined. Their construction requires, for each catamorphism, the definition of an anamorphism that has an inverse-like relationship to that catamorphism. We present an alternative construction, which replaces the stringent requirement that an inverse anamorphism be defined for each catamorphism with a more lenient restriction. The resulting construction has a more efficient implementation than that of Paterson, Meijer, and Hutton and the relevant restriction can be enforced by a HindleyMilner type inference algorithm. We provide numerous examples illustrating our method. 1 Introduction Functional programmers often use catamorphisms (or fold functions) as an elegant means of expressing algorithms over algebraic datatypes. Catamorphisms have also been used by functional programmers as a medium in ...

A polytypic function definition is a function definition that is parametrised with a datatype. It embraces a class of algorithms. As an example we define a simple polytypic "crush" combinator that can be used to calculate polytypically. The ability to define functions polytypically adds another level of flexibility in the reusability of programming idioms and in the design of libraries of interoperable components.

Theorie"en voor het berekenen van algoritmen (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, Prof. Dr. J.A. van Ginkel ingevolge het besluit van het College van Dekanen

The "Boom hierarchy" is a hierarchy of types that begins at the level of trees and includes lists, bags and sets. This hierarchy forms the basis for the calculus of total functions developed by Bird and Meertens, and which has become known as the "BirdMeertens formalism". This paper describes a hierarchy of types that logically precedes the Boom hierarchy. We show how the basic operators of the Bird-Meertens formalism (map, reduce and filter) can be introduced in a logical sequence by beginning with a very simple structure and successively refining that structure. The context of this work is a relational theory of datatypes, rather than a calculus of total functions. Elements of the theory necessary to the later discussion are summarised at the beginning of the paper. 1 Introduction This paper reports on an experiment into the design of a programming algebra. The algebra is an algebra of datatypes oriented towards the calculation of polymorphic functions and relations. Its design d...

This paper considers generic recursion schemes for programs which recurse over multiple inductive structures simultaneously, such as equality, zip and the nth element of a list function. Such schemes have been notably absent from previous work. This paper defines a uniform mechanism for defining such programs and shows that these programs satisfy generic theorems. These theorems are the basis for an automatic improvement algorithm. This algorithm is an improvement over the algorithm presented earlier [14] because, in addition to inducting over multiple structures, it can be incorporated into any algebraic language and is no longer restricted to a "safe" subset. 1 Introduction In previous work [14, 15, 6, 4, 5] we have shown how programming algebraically with generic recursion schemes provides a theory amenable to program calculation [13]. This theory provides a basis for automatic optimization techniques which capture many well-known transformations. Unfortunately, these recursion sc...

Stratego is a domain-specic language for the specication of program transformation systems. The design of Stratego is based on the paradigm of rewriting strategies: user-denable programs in a little language of strategy operators determine where and in what order transformation rules are (automatically) applied to a program. The separation of rules and strategies supports modularity of specications. Stratego also provides generic features for specication of program traversals. In this paper we present a case study of Stratego as applied to a non-trivial problem in program transformation. We demonstrate the use of Stratego in eliminating intermediate data structures from (also known as deforesting) functional programs via the warm fusion algorithm of Launchbury and Sheard. This algorithm has been specied in Stratego and embedded in a fully automatic transformation system for kernel Haskell. The entire system consists of about 2600 lines of specication code, which bre...

One of the flagship applications of partial evaluation is compilation and compiler generation. However, partial evaluation is usually expressed as a source-to-source transformation for high-level languages, whereas realistic compilers produce object code. We close this gap by composing a partial evaluator with a compiler by automatic means. Our work is a successful application of several meta-computation techniques to build the system, both in theory and in practice. The composition is an application of deforestation or fusion. The result is a run-time code generation system built from existing components. Its applications are numerous. For example, it allows the language designer to perform interpreter-based experiments with a source-to-source version of the partial evaluator before building a realistic compiler which generates object code automatically.

Many functional programs with accumulating parameters are contained in the class of macro tree transducers. We present a program transformation technique that can be used to solve the efficiency problems due to creation and consumption of intermediate data structures in compositions of such functions, where classical deforestation techniques fail. In order to do so, given two macro tree transducers under appropriate restrictions, we construct a single macro tree transducer that implements the composition of the two original ones. The imposed restrictions are more liberal than those in the literature on macro tree transducer composition, thus generalising previous results.

Polytypic programs are programs that are parameterised by type constructors (like List), unlike polymorphic programs which are parameterised by types (like Int). In this paper we formulate precisely the polytypic programming problem of "commuting " two datatypes. The precise formulation involves a novel notion of higher order polymorphism. We demonstrate via a number of examples the relevance and interest of the problem, and we show that all "regular datatypes" (the sort of datatypes that one can define in a functional programming language) do indeed commute according to our specification. The framework we use is the theory of allegories, a combination of category theory with the point-free relation calculus. 1 Polytypism The ability to abstract is vital to success in computer programming. At the macro level of requirements engineering the successful designer is the one able to abstract from the particular wishes of a few clients a general purpose product that can capture a l...