This paper describes a new approach to generic functional programming, which allows us to define functions generically for all datatypes expressible in Haskell. A generic function is one that is defined by induction on the structure of types. Typical examples include pretty printers, parsers, and comparison functions. The advanced type system of Haskell presents a real challenge: datatypes may be parameterized not only by types but also by type constructors, type definitions may involve mutual recursion, and recursive calls of type constructors can be arbitrarily nested. We show that--- despite this complexity---a generic function is uniquely defined by giving cases for primitive types and type constructors (such as disjoint unions and cartesian products). Given this information a generic function can be specialized to arbitrary Haskell datatypes. The key idea of the approach is to model types by terms of the simply typed -calculus augmented by a family of recursion operators. While co...

A trie is a search tree scheme that employs the structure of search keys to organize information. Tries were originally devised as a means to represent a collection of records indexed by strings over a fixed alphabet. Based on work by C.P. Wadsworth and others, R.H. Connelly and F.L. Morris generalized the concept to permit indexing by elements of an arbitrary monomorphic datatype. Here we go one step further and define tries and operations on tries generically for arbitrary first-order polymorphic datatypes. The derivation is based on techniques recently developed in the context of polytypic programming. It is well known that for the implementation of generalized tries nested datatypes and polymorphic recursion are needed. Implementing tries for polymorphic datatypes places even greater demands on the type system: it requires rank-2 type signatures and higher-order polymorphic nested datatypes. Despite these requirements the definition of generalized tries for polymorphic datatypes is...

This paper describes a general framework for designing purely functional datatypes that automatically satisfy given size or structural constraints. Using the framework we develop implementations of different matrix types (eg square matrices) and implementations of several tree types (eg Braun trees, 2-3 trees). Consider, for instance, representing square n \Theta n matrices. The usual representation using lists of lists fails to meet the structural constraints: there is no way to ensure that the outer list and the inner lists have the same length. The main idea of our approach is to solve in a first step a related, but simpler problem, namely to generate the multiset of all square numbers. In order to describe this multiset we employ recursion equations involving finite multisets, multiset union, addition and multiplication lifted to multisets. In a second step we mechanically derive datatype definitions from these recursion equations which enforce the `squareness' constraint. The tra...

A functional polytypic program is one that is parameterised by datatype. Since polytypic functions are defined by induction on types rather than by induction on values they typically operate on a higher level of abstraction than their monotypic counterparts. However, polytypic programming is not necessarily more complicated than conventional programming. We show that a polytypic function is uniquely defined by its action on constant functors, projection functors, sums, and products. This information is sufficient to specialize a polytypic function to arbitrary polymorphic datatypes, including mutually recursive datatypes and nested datatypes. The key idea is to use infinite trees as index sets for polytypic functions and to interpret datatypes as algebraic trees. This approach appears both to be simpler, more general, and more efficient than previous ones which are based on the initial algebra semantics of datatypes. Polytypic functions enjoy polytypic properties. We show that well-kno...

Fold operators capture a common recursion pattern over algebraic datatypes. A fold essentially replaces constructors by functions. However, if the datatype is parameterized, the corresponding fold operates on polymorphic functions which severely limits its applicability. In order to overcome this limitation R. Bird and R. Paterson (Bird & Paterson, 1999b) have proposed so-called generalized folds. We show how to define a variation of these folds by induction on the structure of datatype definitions. Unfortunately, for some datatypes generalized folds are less efficient than one would expect. We identify the source of inefficiency and explain how to remedy this shortcoming. While conceptually simple, our approach places high demands on the type system: it requires polymorphic recursion, rank-2 types, and a strong form of type constructor polymorphism. 1 Introduction Fold operators are in every functional programmer's toolbox. In essence, a fold operator replaces constructors by functi...

Number systems serve admirably as templates for container types: a container object of size n is modelled after the representation of the number n and operations on container objects are modelled after their number-theoretic counterparts. Binomial queues are probably the first data structure that was designed with this analogy in mind. In this paper we show how to express these so-called numerical representations as higher-order nested datatypes. A nested datatype allows to capture the structural invariants of a numerical representation, so that the violation of an invariant can be detected at compile-time. We develop a programming method which allows to adapt algorithms to the new representation in a mostly straightforward manner. The framework is employed to implement three different container types: binary random-access lists, binomial queues, and 2-3 finger search trees. The latter data structure, which is treated in some depth, can be seen as the main innovation from a data-struct...

A famous algorithm is the Fast Fourier Transform, or FFT. An efficient iterative version of the FFT algorithm performs as a first step a bit-reversal permutation of the input list. The bit-reversal permutation swaps elements whose indices have binary representations that are the reverse of each other. Using an amortized approach this operation can be made to run in linear time on a random-access machine. An intriguing question is whether a linear-time implementation is also feasible on a pointer machine, that is in a purely functional setting. We show that the answer to this question is in the affirmative. In deriving a solution we employ several advanced programming language concepts such as nested datatypes, associated fold and unfold operators, rank-2 types, and polymorphic recursion. 1 Introduction A bit-reversal permutation operates on lists whose length is n = 2 k for some natural number k and swaps elements whose indices have binary representations that are the reverse of eac...

Datatype-generic programming is about defining functions that depend on the structure, or “shape”, of datatypes. It has been around for more than 10 years, and a lot of progress has been made, in particular in the lazy functional programming language Haskell. There are more than 10 proposals for generic programming libraries or language extensions for Haskell. In this paper we compare and characterise the many generic programming libraries for Haskell. To that end, we introduce a set of criteria and develop a generic programming benchmark: a set of characteristic examples testing various facets of datatype-generic programming. We have implemented the benchmark for ten existing Haskell generic programming libraries and present the evaluation of the libraries. The comparison is useful for reaching a common standard for generic programming, but also for a programmer who has to choose a particular approach for datatype-generic programming.

Datatype-generic programming is parametrizing programs by the structure, or “shape ” of datatypes, letting us write, for example, generic traversal or pretty-printing once and apply them to any data type whose shape we can represent. Although more than two decades old, the field has been vigorously growing in recent years, particularly in Haskell. There are more than ten datatype-generic programming libraries in Haskell, not counting proposed language extensions. The proliferation of the libraries poses the problem of comparing them, to help the users choose the right library for their tasks and to attempt to unify some of them. In this paper we develop an extensive test suite for comparing datatype-generic libraries in a typed functional language. We introduce a broad set of criteria and develop a collection of characteristic examples covering most of the facets of datatype-generic programming. We have implemented the examples for ten existing Haskell generic programming libraries and report for the first time the comprehensive evaluation of the libraries against the broad common standard. ZU064-05-FPR ComparingJournal 21 June 2011 16:28 2 Rodriguez Yakushev et al. 1