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.

Several generic programs for converting values from regular datatypes to some other format, together with their corresponding inverses, are constructed. Among the formats considered are shape plus contents, compact bit streams and pretty printed strings. The different data conversion programs are constructed using John Hughes' arrow combinators along with a proof that printing (from a regular datatype to another format) followed by parsing (from that format back to the regular datatype) is the identity. The printers and parsers are described in PolyP, a polytypic extension of the functional language Haskell.

Abstract Many functions have to be written over and over again for different datatypes, either because datatypes change during the development of programs, or because functions with similar functionality are needed on different datatypes. Examples of such functions are pretty printers, pattern matchers, equality functions, unifiers, rewriting functions, etc. Such functions are called polytypic functions. A polytypic function is a function that is defined by induction on the structure of user-defined datatypes. This thesis introduces polytypic functions, shows how to construct and reason about polytypic functions and describes the implementation of the polytypic programming system PolyP. PolyP extends a functional language (a subset of Haskell) with a construct for writing polytypic functions. The extended language type checks definitions of polytypic functions, and infers the types of all other expressions. Programs in the extended language are translated to Haskell.

This paper describes the polytypic functions in PolyLib, motivates their presence in the library, and gives a rationale for their design. Thus we hope to share our experience with other researchers in the field. We will assume the reader has some familiarity with the field of polytypic programming. Of course, a library is an important part of a programming language. Languages like Java, Delphi, Perl and Haskell are popular partly because of their useful and extensive libraries. For a polytypic programming language it is even more important to have a clear and well-designed library: writing polytypic programs is difficult, and we do not expect many programmers to write polytypic programs. On the other hand, many programmers use polytypic programs such as parser generators, equality functions, etc. This is a first attempt to describe the library of PolyP; we expect that both the form and content of this description will change over time. One of the goals of this paper is to obtain feedback on the library design from other researchers working within the field. At the moment the library only contains the basic