Standard ML programmers often face the problem of how to provide a variable-arity polymorphic function. For example, suppose one is defining a combinator library, e.g. for parsing or pickling. The signature for such a library might look something like the following.

signature COMBINATOR =
   sig
      type 'a t

      val int: int t
      val real: real t
      val string: string t
      val unit: unit t
      val tuple2: 'a1 t * 'a2 t -> ('a1 * 'a2) t
      val tuple3: 'a1 t * 'a2 t * 'a3 t -> ('a1 * 'a2 * 'a3) t
      val tuple4: 'a1 t * 'a2 t * 'a3 t * 'a4 t 
                  -> ('a1 * 'a2 * 'a3 * 'a4) t
      ...
   end

The question is how to define a variable-arity tuple combinator. Traditionally, the only way to take a variable number of arguments in SML is to put the arguments in a list (or vector) and pass that. So, one might define a tuple combinator with the following signature.

val tupleN: 'a list -> 'a list t

The problem with this approach is that as soon as one places values in a list, they must all have the same type. So, programmers often take an alternative approach, and define a family of tuple<N> functions, as we see in the COMBINATOR signature above.

The family-of-functions approach is ugly for many reasons. First, it clutters the signature with a number of functions when there should really only be one. Second, it is closed, in that there are a fixed number of tuple combinators in the interface, and should a client need a combinator for a large tuple, he is out of luck. Third, this approach often requires a lot of duplicate code in the implementation of the combinators.

Fortunately, using Fold01N and products, one can provide an interface and implementation that solves all these problems. Here is a simple pickling module that converts values to strings.

structure Pickler =
   struct
      type 'a t = 'a -> string

      val unit = fn () => ""

      val int = Int.toString

      val real = Real.toString

      val string = id

      type 'a accum = 'a * string list -> string list
         
      val tuple =
         fn z =>
         Fold01N.fold
         {finish = fn ps => fn x => concat (rev (ps (x, []))),
          start = fn p => fn (x, l) => p x :: l,
          zero = unit}
         z

      val ` =
         fn z =>
         Fold01N.step1
         {combine = (fn (p, p') => fn (x & x', l) => p' x' :: "," :: p (x, l))}
         z
   end

If one has n picklers of types

val p1: a1 Pickler.t
val p2: a2 Pickler.t
...
val pn: an Pickler.t

then one can construct a pickler for n-ary products as follows.

tuple `p1 `p2 ... `pn $ : (a1 & a2 & ... & an) Pickler.t

For example, with Pickler in scope, one can prove the following equations.

"" = tuple $ ()
"1" = tuple `int $ 1
"1,2.0" = tuple `int `real $ (1 & 2.0)
"1,2.0,three" = tuple `int `real `string $ (1 & 2.0 & "three")

Here is the signature for Pickler. It shows why the accum type is useful.

signature PICKLER =
   sig
      type 'a t
         
      val int: int t
      val real: real t
      val string: string t
      val unit: unit t

      type 'a accum
      val ` : ('a accum, 'b t, ('a, 'b) prod accum,
               'z1, 'z2, 'z3, 'z4, 'z5, 'z6, 'z7) Fold01N.step1
      val tuple: ('a t, 'a accum, 'b accum, 'b t, unit t,
                  'z1, 'z2, 'z3, 'z4, 'z5) Fold01N.t
   end      

structure Pickler: PICKLER = Pickler