The ITERATOR pattern gives a clean interface for element-by-element access to a collection. Imperative iterations using the pattern have two simultaneous aspects: mapping and accumulating. Various existing functional iterations model one or other of these, but not both simultaneously. We argue that McBride and Paterson’s idioms, and in particular the corresponding traverse operator, do exactly this, and therefore capture the essence of the ITERATOR pattern. We present some axioms for traversal, and illustrate with a simple example, the repmin problem.

Nested (or non-uniform, or non-regular) datatypes have recursive definitions in which the type parameter changes. Their folds are restricted in power due to type constraints. Bird and Paterson introduced generalised folds for extra power, but at the cost of a loss of efficiency: folds may take more than linear time to evaluate. Hinze introduced efficient generalised folds to counter this inefficiency, but did so in a pragmatic way, at the cost of a loss of reasoning power: without categorical or equivalent underpinnings, there are no universal properties for manipulating folds. We combine the efficiency of Hinze's construction with the powerful reasoning tools of Bird and Paterson's.

Abstract. In this paper we formally state and prove theorems characterizing when a function can be constructively reformulated using the recursion operators fold and unfold, i.e. given a function h, when can a function g be constructed such that h = fold g or h = unfold g? These results are refinements of the classical characterization of fold and unfold given by Gibbons, Hutton and Altenkirch in [6]. The proofs presented here have been formalized in Nuprl’s constructive type theory [5] and thereby yield program transformations which map a function h (accompanied by the evidence that h satisfies the required conditions), to a function g such that h = fold g or, as the case may be, h = unfold g. 1

Abstract. Structural recursion over sets is meaningful only if the result is independent of the order in which the set’s elements are enumerated. This paper outlines a theory of function definition for finite sets, based on the fold functionals often used with lists. The fold functional is introduced as a relation, which is then shown to denote a function under certain conditions. Applications include summation and maximum. The theory has been formalized using Isabelle/HOL. 1