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