Difference between revisions of "The Monad.Reader/Issue2/FunWithLinearImplicitParameters"
(half-hearted fmt attempt) |
Benmachine (talk | contribs) (a whole bunch of formatting fixes/improvements) |
||
Line 19: | Line 19: | ||
In this article, we take the next step of impure programming by implementing |
In this article, we take the next step of impure programming by implementing |
||
− | Filinski's < |
+ | Filinski's <hask>reflect</hask> and <hask>reify</hask> functions for a wide class of monads. |
==Introduction== |
==Introduction== |
||
Line 26: | Line 26: | ||
from the article [attachment:Reflection.tar.gz here], it has been successfully |
from the article [attachment:Reflection.tar.gz here], it has been successfully |
||
tested with ghc-6.2.2 and ghc-6.4. The examples of this article can be found |
tested with ghc-6.2.2 and ghc-6.4. The examples of this article can be found |
||
− | in the file < |
+ | in the file <hask>Article.hs</hask>, the implementation of the library in |
− | < |
+ | <hask>Reflection.hs</hask>. |
===Shift and Reset=== |
===Shift and Reset=== |
||
− | The < |
+ | The <hask>shift</hask> and <hask>reflect</hask> control operators provide a way to manipulate |
delimited continuations, which are similar to the undelimited continuation the |
delimited continuations, which are similar to the undelimited continuation the |
||
− | familiar < |
+ | familiar <hask>call/cc</hask> uses, but more powerful. There are more detailed |
descriptions available e.g. in Danvy & Filinski [[#ref1 1]] and Shan |
descriptions available e.g. in Danvy & Filinski [[#ref1 1]] and Shan |
||
[[#ref2 2]]; moreover, Dybvig, Peyton Jones, Sabry [[#ref3 3]] give a unifying |
[[#ref2 2]]; moreover, Dybvig, Peyton Jones, Sabry [[#ref3 3]] give a unifying |
||
treatment of various forms of other "subcontinuations". |
treatment of various forms of other "subcontinuations". |
||
− | Instead of capturing an undelimited continuation as < |
+ | Instead of capturing an undelimited continuation as <hask>call/cc</hask>, <hask>shift</hask> |
− | only captures the subcontinuation/context up to the the next < |
+ | only captures the subcontinuation/context up to the the next <hask>reset</hask>, and |
reifies it into a function value. The result of the evaluation of the body then |
reifies it into a function value. The result of the evaluation of the body then |
||
− | becomes the result of the < |
+ | becomes the result of the <hask>reset</hask>. For example in |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
reset (1 + shift (\k -> k 1 + k 2)) :: Int |
reset (1 + shift (\k -> k 1 + k 2)) :: Int |
||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | the context of < |
+ | the context of <hask>shift</hask> is <hask>k = \x -> x + 1</hask>, so the expression |
− | evaluates to < |
+ | evaluates to <hask>k 1 + k 2 = 2 + 3 = 5</hask>. |
− | The interpretation of < |
+ | The interpretation of <hask>shift</hask> and <hask>reset</hask> is very easy in the |
continuation monad. |
continuation monad. |
||
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
Line 69: | Line 69: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | As we can see, < |
+ | As we can see, <hask>reset e</hask> delimits all effects of <hask>e</hask> and returns a pure |
− | value; < |
+ | value; <hask>shift</hask> lets us explicitly construct the mapping from continuations |
− | to final results, so it is very similar to the data constructor < |
+ | to final results, so it is very similar to the data constructor <hask>Cont</hask>. |
− | Therefore < |
+ | Therefore <hask>shift</hask> and <hask>reset</hask> give us full control over the underlying |
− | continuation monad and are thereby strictly more expressive than < |
+ | continuation monad and are thereby strictly more expressive than <hask>call/cc</hask>, |
− | which is polymorphic in the answer type < |
+ | which is polymorphic in the answer type <hask>r</hask>. |
− | To treat the direct-style < |
+ | To treat the direct-style <hask>shift</hask> and <hask>reset</hask> safely in a typed |
setting, it is necessary to express the answer type of the underlying |
setting, it is necessary to express the answer type of the underlying |
||
continuation monad in the types. The Hindley-Milner type system cannot express |
continuation monad in the types. The Hindley-Milner type system cannot express |
||
Line 85: | Line 85: | ||
===Monadic Reflection=== |
===Monadic Reflection=== |
||
Monadic reflection [[#ref4 4]] enables us to write monadic code in direct style. |
Monadic reflection [[#ref4 4]] enables us to write monadic code in direct style. |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>reflect</hask> "reflects" a monadic value into a first-class value of our |
language. The side effects can then be observed by "reifing" a value back into |
language. The side effects can then be observed by "reifing" a value back into |
||
monadic form. For example, |
monadic form. For example, |
||
Line 94: | Line 94: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | both yield the same result, namely < |
+ | both yield the same result, namely <hask>[0,1,2,3]</hask> |
In order to understand how monadic reflection can be implemented, we combine |
In order to understand how monadic reflection can be implemented, we combine |
||
− | the observation that < |
+ | the observation that <hask>shift</hask> and <hask>reset</hask> give us the full power over an |
underlying continuation monad with an arbitrary answer type with Wadler's |
underlying continuation monad with an arbitrary answer type with Wadler's |
||
[[#ref5 5]] observation that every monad can be embedded in the continuation |
[[#ref5 5]] observation that every monad can be embedded in the continuation |
||
− | monad. So using a direct-style < |
+ | monad. So using a direct-style <hask>shift</hask> and <hask>reset</hask>, we can write |
arbitrary monadic code in direct style. |
arbitrary monadic code in direct style. |
||
Line 113: | Line 113: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | Here, < |
+ | Here, <hask>project . embed === id</hask> and the property of <hask>embed</hask> and |
− | < |
+ | <hask>project</hask> constituting monad morphisms between the monad <hask>m</hask> and the |
− | monad < |
+ | monad <hask>forall r. ContT m r a</hask> can easily be checked. |
Translating these morphisms into direct style, we immediately arrive at |
Translating these morphisms into direct style, we immediately arrive at |
||
− | Filinski's < |
+ | Filinski's <hask>reflect</hask> and <hask>reify</hask> operations |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
reflect m = shift (\k -> k =<< m) |
reflect m = shift (\k -> k =<< m) |
||
Line 138: | Line 138: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
Assuming left to right evaluation, the result of this expression is |
Assuming left to right evaluation, the result of this expression is |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>k 0 ++ k 2</hask> where <hask>k</hask> is bound to the subcontinuation |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
k = \x -> reset [x + shift (\k' -> k' 0 ++ k' 1)] |
k = \x -> reset [x + shift (\k' -> k' 0 ++ k' 1)] |
||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | Again, in this term, < |
+ | Again, in this term, <hask>k'</hask> is bound to <hask>\y -> reset [x + y]</hask>, so <hask>k</hask> is the function |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
k = \x -> [x + 0] ++ [x + 1] = \x -> [x,x+1] |
k = \x -> [x + 0] ++ [x + 1] = \x -> [x,x+1] |
||
Line 175: | Line 175: | ||
Linear implicit parameters [[#ref6 6]] work very much like regular implicit |
Linear implicit parameters [[#ref6 6]] work very much like regular implicit |
||
parameters, but the type of the parameter is required to be an instance of the |
parameters, but the type of the parameter is required to be an instance of the |
||
− | class < |
+ | class <hask>GHC.Exts.Splittable</hask> with the single method |
− | < |
+ | <hask>split :: a -> (a,a)</hask>. At each branching point of the computation, the |
parameter gets split, so that each value is used only once. However, as we shall |
parameter gets split, so that each value is used only once. However, as we shall |
||
later see, this linearity is not enforced in all circumstances, with higher order |
later see, this linearity is not enforced in all circumstances, with higher order |
||
Line 184: | Line 184: | ||
not mind the names becoming very long) or a direct-style !QuickCheck |
not mind the names becoming very long) or a direct-style !QuickCheck |
||
[[#ref7 7]]. In this article, they will be used to store a subcontinuation from |
[[#ref7 7]]. In this article, they will be used to store a subcontinuation from |
||
− | an enclosing < |
+ | an enclosing <hask>reset</hask>. The syntax is exactly the same as in the implicit |
− | case with the < |
+ | case with the <hask>?</hask> replaced by <hask>%</hask>. We give a small example |
illustrating their intended use. |
illustrating their intended use. |
||
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
Line 234: | Line 234: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | The < |
+ | The <hask>unsafePerformIO</hask> function executes an <hask>IO</hask> action and returns the |
result as a pure value. Thus, it should only be used if the result of the |
result as a pure value. Thus, it should only be used if the result of the |
||
action does not depend on the state of the external world. However, we do not |
action does not depend on the state of the external world. However, we do not |
||
demand that the result of the computation be independent of the evaluation |
demand that the result of the computation be independent of the evaluation |
||
order. Furthermore, we must be aware that the compiler may inline function |
order. Furthermore, we must be aware that the compiler may inline function |
||
− | definitions, so that two invocations of < |
+ | definitions, so that two invocations of <hask>unsafePerformIO</hask> might be |
− | unexpectedly shared or duplicated. The < |
+ | unexpectedly shared or duplicated. The <hask>{-# NOINLINE foo #-}</hask> pragma can |
be used to forbid inlining in such cases. |
be used to forbid inlining in such cases. |
||
− | The < |
+ | The <hask>unsafeCoerce#</hask> function is used to convert a value between two types that |
are known to be equal although the type system cannot proof this fact. If the |
are known to be equal although the type system cannot proof this fact. If the |
||
types do not match, its behavior is undefined; usually, the program will crash |
types do not match, its behavior is undefined; usually, the program will crash |
||
Line 250: | Line 250: | ||
===Dynamic Exceptions=== |
===Dynamic Exceptions=== |
||
In addition to exceptions that only print an error message, the Hierarchical |
In addition to exceptions that only print an error message, the Hierarchical |
||
− | Libraries provide the < |
+ | Libraries provide the <hask>throwDyn</hask> and <hask>catchDyn</hask> functions that throw and catch |
exceptions of an arbitrary instance of the class Typeable. |
exceptions of an arbitrary instance of the class Typeable. |
||
However, there is a tricky aspect of exceptions because of Haskell's laziness. |
However, there is a tricky aspect of exceptions because of Haskell's laziness. |
||
Line 261: | Line 261: | ||
Here the evaluation of the list only determines whether the list is empty, but |
Here the evaluation of the list only determines whether the list is empty, but |
||
the list is inspected when the expression is printed, and thus the exception |
the list is inspected when the expression is printed, and thus the exception |
||
− | escapes the < |
+ | escapes the <hask>catchDyn</hask> exception handler. |
When all thrown exception have to be caught, |
When all thrown exception have to be caught, |
||
we must evaluate the expression fully before handling the exception, which can |
we must evaluate the expression fully before handling the exception, which can |
||
− | be ensured with the < |
+ | be ensured with the <hask>DeepSeq</hask> [[#ref9 9]] class. |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
Line 277: | Line 277: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | Not all types can be made an instance of < |
+ | Not all types can be made an instance of <hask>DeepSeq</hask>. In particular, functions |
− | with an infinite domain and < |
+ | with an infinite domain and <hask>IO</hask> actions cannot be fully evaluated in a |
sensible way. |
sensible way. |
||
Line 286: | Line 286: | ||
===Basic Declarations=== |
===Basic Declarations=== |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>k :-> v</hask> is just an abstract representation of a finite map from k to v, |
− | The type < |
+ | The type <hask>Position</hask> will be used to store the context of the evaluation, so |
it should have the property that different sequences of applications of |
it should have the property that different sequences of applications of |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>leftPos</hask> and <hask>rightPos</hask> to an <hask>initPos</hask> yield different values. A |
− | < |
+ | <hask>Cell</hask> stores a value of arbitrary type. The most interesting declaration |
− | is that of < |
+ | is that of <hask>Prompt</hask>. The field <hask>position</hask> saves the position of the |
− | current expression relative to the next enclosing reset, < |
+ | current expression relative to the next enclosing reset, <hask>prompt</hask> is the |
− | expression this next enclosing < |
+ | expression this next enclosing <hask>reset</hask> computes, <hask>facts</hask> stores the |
− | subexpressions that already have been assigned a value, and < |
+ | subexpressions that already have been assigned a value, and <hask>promptID</hask> will |
be used for exception handling. |
be used for exception handling. |
||
Line 330: | Line 330: | ||
===Shift and Reset=== |
===Shift and Reset=== |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>shift</hask> first saves the <hask>Prompt</hask> and checks if this <hask>shift</hask> has |
− | already been assigned a value using the < |
+ | already been assigned a value using the <hask>facts</hask> dictionary. If so, it just |
− | returns that value, otherwise, the outer < |
+ | returns that value, otherwise, the outer <hask>reset</hask> should return the value of |
− | < |
+ | <hask>f</hask> applied to the subcontinuation from the <hask>shift</hask> to the <hask>reset</hask>. |
− | The subcontinuation we pass to < |
+ | The subcontinuation we pass to <hask>f</hask> creates a new copy of the <hask>Prompt</hask> on |
− | every invocation, updates the < |
+ | every invocation, updates the <hask>facts</hask> dictionary with the additional |
− | information that instead of the current < |
+ | information that instead of the current <hask>shift</hask>, the value <hask>x</hask> should |
− | be returned, and finally executes the < |
+ | be returned, and finally executes the <hask>prompt</hask> computation of the enclosing |
− | < |
+ | <hask>reset</hask>. In order to pass the result of <hask>f</hask> up to the next <hask>reset</hask>, |
− | we use exception handling, the unique ID of the < |
+ | we use exception handling, the unique ID of the <hask>Prompt</hask> ensures that it is |
− | handled at the right place; the value, although known to be of type < |
+ | handled at the right place; the value, although known to be of type <hask>r</hask> is |
− | put in a < |
+ | put in a <hask>Cell</hask> because we do not know whether <hask>r</hask> is an instance of |
− | the class < |
+ | the class <hask>Typeable</hask>. |
− | Now all < |
+ | Now all <hask>reset</hask> has to do is evaluate the expression with a fresh |
− | < |
+ | <hask>Prompt</hask>, and return the thrown value instead if an exception is caught. |
This gets a little more complicated because we need to be able to handle the |
This gets a little more complicated because we need to be able to handle the |
||
− | effects of nested < |
+ | effects of nested <hask>resets</hask>. |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
Line 375: | Line 375: | ||
It is interesting to observe that in case of the error monad, this code uses |
It is interesting to observe that in case of the error monad, this code uses |
||
− | the < |
+ | the <hask>IO</hask> monad's exception handling mechanism to propagate the error. |
Finally, we need to check the unsafe features are used in a safe way as |
Finally, we need to check the unsafe features are used in a safe way as |
||
− | described above. The < |
+ | described above. The <hask>unsafeCoerce#</hask> calls are always coercing to type |
− | < |
+ | <hask>r</hask> and it is clear that always the same <hask>r</hask> is in scope which we are |
− | ensuring using the < |
+ | ensuring using the <hask>i == promptID</hask> check. <hask>unsafePerformIO</hask> is only |
used for a "pure exception handling", which destroys purity, but still |
used for a "pure exception handling", which destroys purity, but still |
||
satisfies the weaker condition that the behavior does not depend on the outside |
satisfies the weaker condition that the behavior does not depend on the outside |
||
Line 387: | Line 387: | ||
===Reflection and Reification=== |
===Reflection and Reification=== |
||
− | With working < |
+ | With working <hask>shift</hask> and <hask>reset</hask> functions, we can now turn to monadic |
reflection primitives. We first consider the case of the continuation monad. |
reflection primitives. We first consider the case of the continuation monad. |
||
Line 399: | Line 399: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | As an example, we lift the function < |
+ | As an example, we lift the function <hask>callCC</hask> from <hask>Control.Monad.Cont</hask> |
to direct-style. |
to direct-style. |
||
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
Line 406: | Line 406: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | However, the < |
+ | However, the <hask>call/cc</hask> operation can be implemented much more nicely using |
− | only two < |
+ | only two <hask>shift</hask>s, as in |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
callCC' :: ((forall b. a -> b) -> Direct r a) -> Direct r a |
callCC' :: ((forall b. a -> b) -> Direct r a) -> Direct r a |
||
Line 418: | Line 418: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | correctly evaluates to < |
+ | correctly evaluates to <hask>10</hask>. It is a nice exercise to do this in Haskell's |
continuation monad; but be warned that it is a little harder than the above |
continuation monad; but be warned that it is a little harder than the above |
||
direct-style version. |
direct-style version. |
||
====Reflecting Arbitrary Monads==== |
====Reflecting Arbitrary Monads==== |
||
− | Now, implementing < |
+ | Now, implementing <hask>reflect</hask> and <hask>reify</hask> is easier than in Filinski's |
− | implementation in SML, because the stronger static guarantees of our < |
+ | implementation in SML, because the stronger static guarantees of our <hask>shift</hask> |
− | and < |
+ | and <hask>reset</hask> functions eliminate the need for unsafe coercion functions. |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
-- Type alias for more concise type signatures of direct-style code. |
-- Type alias for more concise type signatures of direct-style code. |
||
Line 467: | Line 467: | ||
Indeed, omitting a type signature can sometimes result in a different |
Indeed, omitting a type signature can sometimes result in a different |
||
behavior. Consider the following code, where |
behavior. Consider the following code, where |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>shift (\k -> k n)</hask> and <hask>n</hask> should behave identically. |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
-- Without the explicit signature for k GHC does not infer a |
-- Without the explicit signature for k GHC does not infer a |
||
Line 477: | Line 477: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | GHC considers the function < |
+ | GHC considers the function <hask>down</hask> to be monomorphically recursive, but in |
− | fact the recursive call to < |
+ | fact the recursive call to <hask>down</hask> should be in a different context (with |
− | the implicit parameter bound to a different value), so < |
+ | the implicit parameter bound to a different value), so <hask>down</hask> should |
actually be polymorphically recursive. This is semantically different and |
actually be polymorphically recursive. This is semantically different and |
||
ensures the linearity. We can persuade GHC to treat it correctly by giving the |
ensures the linearity. We can persuade GHC to treat it correctly by giving the |
||
Line 493: | Line 493: | ||
to happen when expressions with differently polymorphic linear implicit |
to happen when expressions with differently polymorphic linear implicit |
||
parameter constraints are unified. In the above example, this occurs when |
parameter constraints are unified. In the above example, this occurs when |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>k</hask>'s explicit type signature is dropped and the signature of <hask>down</hask> is |
− | not generalized to < |
+ | not generalized to <hask>Int -> Direct r [Int]</hask>. |
===Higher order functions=== |
===Higher order functions=== |
||
Line 515: | Line 515: | ||
The first surprise is that this code type checks at all: The type of the |
The first surprise is that this code type checks at all: The type of the |
||
− | function < |
+ | function <hask>f</hask> is <hask>Int -> Monadic [] Int</hask> but in order to be passed to |
− | < |
+ | <hask>map</hask>, the function <hask>f</hask> must have the different type |
− | < |
+ | <hask>Monadic [] (Int -> Int)</hask>. |
GHC pushes contexts at covariant argument positions as far to the |
GHC pushes contexts at covariant argument positions as far to the |
||
left as possible using a technique called for-all-hoisting [[#ref6 6]], |
left as possible using a technique called for-all-hoisting [[#ref6 6]], |
||
Line 541: | Line 541: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
evaluate to? Two possibilities come to mind: Either we choose a value for the |
evaluate to? Two possibilities come to mind: Either we choose a value for the |
||
− | variable < |
+ | variable <hask>x</hask> first, and then evaluate the lists <hask>[x,x+2,x+4]</hask> or we |
− | view < |
+ | view <hask>x</hask> as the reflected list <hask>[0,1]</hask> and the choice whether <hask>x</hask> |
− | stands for < |
+ | stands for <hask>0</hask> or <hask>1</hask> is made whenever <hask>x</hask> it is evaluated. It is |
immediately clear how both variants can be achieved in monadic style. |
immediately clear how both variants can be achieved in monadic style. |
||
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
Line 560: | Line 560: | ||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
It is important that we give a real type signature: |
It is important that we give a real type signature: |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>x :: Int = reflect [0,1]</hask> does not make any difference! |
This is a nice and very natural way to describe both situations, but the |
This is a nice and very natural way to describe both situations, but the |
||
answer to the question which one GHC chooses when no signature is given is less |
answer to the question which one GHC chooses when no signature is given is less |
||
satisfactory: It depends on the status of the flag |
satisfactory: It depends on the status of the flag |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>-f(no)monomorphism-restriction</hask>. |
− | With the monomorphism "restriction" [[#ref11 11]] turned on, < |
+ | With the monomorphism "restriction" [[#ref11 11]] turned on, <hask>x</hask> must have |
a monomorphic type, so the first situation applies, without the restriction |
a monomorphic type, so the first situation applies, without the restriction |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>x</hask> gets the most general type which leads to the second behavior. In my |
opinion, it would be nice if there were a flag that, in order to give the |
opinion, it would be nice if there were a flag that, in order to give the |
||
programmer a chance to disambiguate his code, causes a warning to be emitted |
programmer a chance to disambiguate his code, causes a warning to be emitted |
||
Line 575: | Line 575: | ||
==Examples== |
==Examples== |
||
− | We now present some examples reflecting the < |
+ | We now present some examples reflecting the <hask>Cont</hask> and <hask>[]</hask> monads. |
===Lazy Evaluation=== |
===Lazy Evaluation=== |
||
Line 581: | Line 581: | ||
semantics. This is not surprising as one motivation for the use of monads is |
semantics. This is not surprising as one motivation for the use of monads is |
||
the need to do IO. For IO, evaluation order is important and call-by-value |
the need to do IO. For IO, evaluation order is important and call-by-value |
||
− | makes evaluation order easier to reason about. For the < |
+ | makes evaluation order easier to reason about. For the <hask>IO</hask> monad this |
− | certainly the right decision, and if desired, the < |
+ | certainly the right decision, and if desired, the <hask>unsafeInterleaveIO</hask> |
− | function can be used to execute < |
+ | function can be used to execute <hask>IO</hask> operations lazily. |
But such a lazy monadic behavior would be practical for other monads, too: The |
But such a lazy monadic behavior would be practical for other monads, too: The |
||
Line 631: | Line 631: | ||
If we want to solve the problem in Haskell, we need to make a big compromise: |
If we want to solve the problem in Haskell, we need to make a big compromise: |
||
Either we take the easy road and generate a list of the permutations and then |
Either we take the easy road and generate a list of the permutations and then |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>filter</hask> the good ones, which is unfortunately very slow because ''all'' |
permutations must be checked even if it already turns out after inspecting |
permutations must be checked even if it already turns out after inspecting |
||
a few list elements that no permutation starting this way can have the property. |
a few list elements that no permutation starting this way can have the property. |
||
Line 682: | Line 682: | ||
Curry) is about six times slower while the solution using monadic reflection is |
Curry) is about six times slower while the solution using monadic reflection is |
||
another four times slower (and gets slightly worse for larger values of |
another four times slower (and gets slightly worse for larger values of |
||
− | < |
+ | <hask>n</hask>), since a lot of recomputation is implied by the way <hask>shift</hask> and |
− | < |
+ | <hask>reset</hask> are implemented. Finally, the naÔve solution would probably take |
years to finish. |
years to finish. |
||
Line 697: | Line 697: | ||
library, respectively. They can be checked for coincidence using !QuickCheck |
library, respectively. They can be checked for coincidence using !QuickCheck |
||
tests generating type-checking expressions for the language. The monad |
tests generating type-checking expressions for the language. The monad |
||
− | the interpreter is built upon is an < |
+ | the interpreter is built upon is an <hask>ST</hask> monad augmented with continuations |
− | of answer type < |
+ | of answer type <hask>Int</hask> using the <hask>ContT</hask> transformer. |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
newtype Eval s a |
newtype Eval s a |
||
Line 717: | Line 717: | ||
newtype Ref s = Ref { unRef :: STRef s (U' s `Either` U s) } |
newtype Ref s = Ref { unRef :: STRef s (U' s `Either` U s) } |
||
</haskell> |
</haskell> |
||
− | So an < |
+ | So an <hask>U s</hask> is either a reference or a value of type <hask>U' s</hask>; references |
− | either point to a thunk of type < |
+ | either point to a thunk of type <hask>U s</hask> or to an evaluated value of type |
− | < |
+ | <hask>U' s</hask>. Laziness is provided by two functions of the following types. |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
<haskell>#!syntax haskell |
||
-- Delays a computation |
-- Delays a computation |
||
Line 742: | Line 742: | ||
implicit parameters. This special rÙle of the reader monad might be justified |
implicit parameters. This special rÙle of the reader monad might be justified |
||
by additional properties this monad has, for example that there are |
by additional properties this monad has, for example that there are |
||
− | isomorphisms of type < |
+ | isomorphisms of type <hask>m (a -> b) -> a -> m b</hask> and |
− | < |
+ | <hask>m (a, b) -> (m a, m b)</hask> whose inverses are given by |
− | < |
+ | <hask>\f x -> f `ap` return x</hask> and <hask>liftM2 (,)</hask>, respectively. |
Also, special tools [[#ref13 13]] are being developed that automatically |
Also, special tools [[#ref13 13]] are being developed that automatically |
||
transform a function from direct into monadic style, but this process |
transform a function from direct into monadic style, but this process |
||
requires arbitrary decisions where to apply effects, e.g. it is unclear if |
requires arbitrary decisions where to apply effects, e.g. it is unclear if |
||
− | a function of type < |
+ | a function of type <hask>Int -> Bool</hask> should be monadified to a function of |
− | type < |
+ | type <hask>Monad m => m Int -> m Bool</hask> or <hask>Monad m => Int -> m Bool</hask>, as |
both make sense in different circumstances. |
both make sense in different circumstances. |
||
Line 787: | Line 787: | ||
experimental features; time and space usage are increased by the suboptimal |
experimental features; time and space usage are increased by the suboptimal |
||
encoding of continuations and the recomputations; and the number of supported |
encoding of continuations and the recomputations; and the number of supported |
||
− | monads is limited by the < |
+ | monads is limited by the <hask>DeepSeq</hask> requirement. |
However, we provided a framework with strong static guarantees in which it is |
However, we provided a framework with strong static guarantees in which it is |
||
− | easy to experiment with the unfamiliar < |
+ | easy to experiment with the unfamiliar <hask>shift</hask> and <hask>reset</hask> operators, |
and we learned that GHC Haskell's type system goes well beyond |
and we learned that GHC Haskell's type system goes well beyond |
||
Hindley-Milner and it is almost ready for an impure language where effects are |
Hindley-Milner and it is almost ready for an impure language where effects are |
Revision as of 18:46, 9 June 2011
This article needs reformatting! Please help tidy it up --WouterSwierstra 14:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
[attachment:Reflection.pdf PDF version of this article]
[attachment:Reflection.tar.gz Code from the article] [:IssueTwo/FeedBack/FunWithLinearImplicitParameters: Feedback]
Fun with Linear Implicit Parameters
Monadic Reflection in Haskell
by [:ThomasJ‰ger:Thomas J‰ger] for The Monad.Reader [:IssueTwo:Issue Two] BR 01.05.2005
Abstract. Haskell is widely believed to be a purely functional language. While this is certainly true for Haskell98, GHC's various extensions can interplay in unforeseen ways and make it possible to write side-effecting code.
In this article, we take the next step of impure programming by implementing
Filinski's reflect
and reify
functions for a wide class of monads.
Introduction
The following sections provide a short introduction into the various concepts
our implementation uses. You can download the implementation and the examples
from the article [attachment:Reflection.tar.gz here], it has been successfully
tested with ghc-6.2.2 and ghc-6.4. The examples of this article can be found
in the file Article.hs
, the implementation of the library in
Reflection.hs
.
Shift and Reset
The shift
and reflect
control operators provide a way to manipulate
delimited continuations, which are similar to the undelimited continuation the
familiar call/cc
uses, but more powerful. There are more detailed
descriptions available e.g. in Danvy & Filinski #ref1 1 and Shan
#ref2 2; moreover, Dybvig, Peyton Jones, Sabry #ref3 3 give a unifying
treatment of various forms of other "subcontinuations".
Instead of capturing an undelimited continuation as call/cc
, shift
only captures the subcontinuation/context up to the the next reset
, and
reifies it into a function value. The result of the evaluation of the body then
becomes the result of the reset
. For example in
#!syntax haskell
reset (1 + shift (\k -> k 1 + k 2)) :: Int
the context of shift
is k = \x -> x + 1
, so the expression
evaluates to k 1 + k 2 = 2 + 3 = 5
.
The interpretation of shift
and reset
is very easy in the
continuation monad.
#!syntax haskell
-- An action in the continuation monad maps a continuation,
-- i.e the "rest" of the computation, to a final result of type r.
newtype Cont r a = Cont { runCont :: (a -> r) -> r }
instance Functor (Cont r) where {- ... -}
instance Monad (Cont r) where {- ... -}
-- NB. In the attached Article.hs file, these are called shiftC and resetC.
shift :: ((a -> r) -> Cont r r) -> Cont r a
shift e = Cont $ \k -> reset (e k)
reset :: Cont a a -> a
reset e = e `runCont` id
-- The above example written in monadic style
* Main> reset $ (1 +) `fmap` shift (\k -> return $ k 1 + k 2)
5
As we can see, reset e
delimits all effects of e
and returns a pure
value; shift
lets us explicitly construct the mapping from continuations
to final results, so it is very similar to the data constructor Cont
.
Therefore shift
and reset
give us full control over the underlying
continuation monad and are thereby strictly more expressive than call/cc
,
which is polymorphic in the answer type r
.
To treat the direct-style shift
and reset
safely in a typed
setting, it is necessary to express the answer type of the underlying
continuation monad in the types. The Hindley-Milner type system cannot express
this, but luckily, Haskell allows type information to be hidden in contexts,
which provides our approach with full static type safety as opposed to
Filinski's implementation in SML.
Monadic Reflection
Monadic reflection #ref4 4 enables us to write monadic code in direct style.
reflect
"reflects" a monadic value into a first-class value of our
language. The side effects can then be observed by "reifing" a value back into
monadic form. For example,
#!syntax haskell
> reify (reflect [0,2] + reflect [0,1]) :: [Int]
and
> liftM2 (+) [0,2] [0,1]
both yield the same result, namely [0,1,2,3]
In order to understand how monadic reflection can be implemented, we combine
the observation that shift
and reset
give us the full power over an
underlying continuation monad with an arbitrary answer type with Wadler's
#ref5 5 observation that every monad can be embedded in the continuation
monad. So using a direct-style shift
and reset
, we can write
arbitrary monadic code in direct style.
Explicitly (but hiding the wrapping necessary for the ContT monad transformer), Wadler's transformation is as follows
#!syntax haskell
embed :: Monad m => m a -> (forall r. (a -> m r) -> m r)
embed m = \k -> k =<< m
project :: Monad m => (forall r. (a -> m r) -> m r) -> m a
project f = f return
Here, project . embed === id
and the property of embed
and
project
constituting monad morphisms between the monad m
and the
monad forall r. ContT m r a
can easily be checked.
Translating these morphisms into direct style, we immediately arrive at
Filinski's reflect
and reify
operations
#!syntax haskell
reflect m = shift (\k -> k =<< m)
reify t = reset (return t)
Now let us have a closer look at the above example to see how it works operationally.
#!syntax haskell
e = reify (reflect [0,2] + reflect [0,1])
Substituting the definitions, this becomes
#!syntax haskell
e = reset (return (shift (\k -> k =<< [0,2]) + shift (\k -> k =<< [0,1])))
which simplifies to
#!syntax haskell
e = reset [shift (\k -> k 0 ++ k 2) + shift (\k' -> k' 0 ++ k' 1)]
Assuming left to right evaluation, the result of this expression is
k 0 ++ k 2
where k
is bound to the subcontinuation
#!syntax haskell
k = \x -> reset [x + shift (\k' -> k' 0 ++ k' 1)]
Again, in this term, k'
is bound to \y -> reset [x + y]
, so k
is the function
#!syntax haskell
k = \x -> [x + 0] ++ [x + 1] = \x -> [x,x+1]
Therefore, as we expected, the whole expression evaluates to
#!syntax haskell
e = k 0 ++ k 2 = [0,1] ++ [2,3] = [0,1,2,3]
Implicit Parameters
Implicit parameters #ref6 6 are GHC-specific type system extension providing dynamically bound variables. They are passed in the same way as type class dictionaries, but unlike type class dictionaries, their value can be changed for a subexpression. The types of the implicit parameters a function expects appear in type contexts which now make sense at arbitrary argument positions.
#!syntax haskell
addThree :: (?foo :: Int) => Int
addThree = 3 + ?foo
withFour :: ((?foo :: Int) => a) -> a
withFour x = let ?foo = 4 in x
* Main> withFour addThree
7
We see that implicit parameters act like a reader monad written in direct style. The commutativity of the reader monad ensures that the code still is referentially transparent (the monomorphic recursion issue aside that will be discussed below).
Linear implicit parameters #ref6 6 work very much like regular implicit
parameters, but the type of the parameter is required to be an instance of the
class GHC.Exts.Splittable
with the single method
split :: a -> (a,a)
. At each branching point of the computation, the
parameter gets split, so that each value is used only once. However, as we shall
later see, this linearity is not enforced in all circumstances, with higher order
functions and a certain class of recursive functions being the notable exceptions.
Possible uses are random number distribution, fresh name generation (if you do
not mind the names becoming very long) or a direct-style !QuickCheck
#ref7 7. In this article, they will be used to store a subcontinuation from
an enclosing reset
. The syntax is exactly the same as in the implicit
case with the ?
replaced by %
. We give a small example
illustrating their intended use.
#!syntax haskell
import qualified System.Random as R
instance Splittable R.StdGen where split = R.split
randInts :: R.StdGen -> (Int, Int, Int)
randInts gen = let %gen = gen in (rand, rand, rand) where
rand :: (%gen :: R.StdGen) => Int
rand = fst $ R.random %gen
* Main> print . randInts =<< R.getStdGen
(-1305955622,-1639797044,-945468976)
As in the implicit case, the semantics of linear implicit parameters can be described in terms of a "monad", which, however, does not obey the monad laws in any nontrivial case.
#!syntax haskell
newtype Split r a = Split { runSplit :: r -> a }
instance Functor (Split r) where
f `fmap` Split x = Split $ f . x
instance Splittable r => Monad (Split r) where
return x = Split $ const x
Split x >>= f = Split $ \s ->
let (s1,s2) = split s in f (x s1) `runSplit` s2
toSplit :: ((%foo :: r) => a) -> Split r a
toSplit x = Split $ \r -> let %foo = r in x
fromSplit :: Split r a -> ((%foo :: r) => a)
fromSplit (Split f) = f %foo
The ability to freely transform between "monadic" and "implicit" style is often very helpful, e.g. to work around GHC's limitation that signature contexts in a mutually recursive group must all be identical.
Unsafe Operations
The code below uses two unsafe operations #ref8 8. We briefly discuss which conditions must be checked in order to ensure that they are used in a "safe" way.
#!syntax haskell
unsafePerformIO :: IO a -> a
unsafeCoerce# :: a -> b
The unsafePerformIO
function executes an IO
action and returns the
result as a pure value. Thus, it should only be used if the result of the
action does not depend on the state of the external world. However, we do not
demand that the result of the computation be independent of the evaluation
order. Furthermore, we must be aware that the compiler may inline function
definitions, so that two invocations of unsafePerformIO
might be
unexpectedly shared or duplicated. The {-# NOINLINE foo #-}
pragma can
be used to forbid inlining in such cases.
The unsafeCoerce#
function is used to convert a value between two types that
are known to be equal although the type system cannot proof this fact. If the
types do not match, its behavior is undefined; usually, the program will crash
or return a wrong result.
Dynamic Exceptions
In addition to exceptions that only print an error message, the Hierarchical
Libraries provide the throwDyn
and catchDyn
functions that throw and catch
exceptions of an arbitrary instance of the class Typeable.
However, there is a tricky aspect of exceptions because of Haskell's laziness.
Consider
#!syntax haskell
* Main> print =<< evaluate ([1,throwDyn "escape"])
`catchDyn` \"escape" -> return [2]
[1,*** Exception: (unknown)
Here the evaluation of the list only determines whether the list is empty, but
the list is inspected when the expression is printed, and thus the exception
escapes the catchDyn
exception handler.
When all thrown exception have to be caught,
we must evaluate the expression fully before handling the exception, which can
be ensured with the DeepSeq
#ref9 9 class.
#!syntax haskell
infixr 0 `deepSeq`, $!!
class DeepSeq a where
deepSeq :: a -> b -> b
($!!) :: (DeepSeq a) => (a -> b) -> a -> b
f $!! x = x `deepSeq` f x
Not all types can be made an instance of DeepSeq
. In particular, functions
with an infinite domain and IO
actions cannot be fully evaluated in a
sensible way.
Implementation
This section discusses the implementation of the monadic reflection library. It safely be skipped, especially the first two subsections are very technical.
Basic Declarations
k :-> v
is just an abstract representation of a finite map from k to v,
The type Position
will be used to store the context of the evaluation, so
it should have the property that different sequences of applications of
leftPos
and rightPos
to an initPos
yield different values. A
Cell
stores a value of arbitrary type. The most interesting declaration
is that of Prompt
. The field position
saves the position of the
current expression relative to the next enclosing reset, prompt
is the
expression this next enclosing reset
computes, facts
stores the
subexpressions that already have been assigned a value, and promptID
will
be used for exception handling.
#!syntax haskell
infixr 9 :->
lookup :: Ord k => (k :-> v) -> k -> Maybe v
insert :: Ord k => (k :-> v) -> k -> v -> k :-> v
empty :: k :-> v
leftPos :: Position -> Position
rightPos :: Position -> Position
initPos :: Position
type Facts = Position :-> Cell
data Cell = forall a. Cell a deriving Typeable
data Prompt r = Prompt {
position :: Position,
prompt :: Direct r r,
facts :: Facts,
promptID :: Unique
}
newPrompt :: Facts -> Direct r r -> Prompt r
instance Splittable (Prompt r) where
split p = (p {position = leftPos pos},
p {position = rightPos pos}) where
pos = position p
type Direct r a = (%ans :: Prompt r) => a
Shift and Reset
shift
first saves the Prompt
and checks if this shift
has
already been assigned a value using the facts
dictionary. If so, it just
returns that value, otherwise, the outer reset
should return the value of
f
applied to the subcontinuation from the shift
to the reset
.
The subcontinuation we pass to f
creates a new copy of the Prompt
on
every invocation, updates the facts
dictionary with the additional
information that instead of the current shift
, the value x
should
be returned, and finally executes the prompt
computation of the enclosing
reset
. In order to pass the result of f
up to the next reset
,
we use exception handling, the unique ID of the Prompt
ensures that it is
handled at the right place; the value, although known to be of type r
is
put in a Cell
because we do not know whether r
is an instance of
the class Typeable
.
Now all reset
has to do is evaluate the expression with a fresh
Prompt
, and return the thrown value instead if an exception is caught.
This gets a little more complicated because we need to be able to handle the
effects of nested resets
.
#!syntax haskell
shift :: ((a -> r) -> Direct r r) -> Direct r a
shift f :: Direct r a =
let ans :: Prompt r
ans = %ans
in case lookup (facts ans) (position ans) of
Just (Cell a) -> unsafeCoerce# a
Nothing -> throwDyn . (,) (promptID ans) . Cell . f $ \x ->
let %ans = newPrompt
(insert (facts ans) (position ans) (Cell x))
(prompt ans)
in prompt ans
reset :: DeepSeq r => Direct r r -> r
reset e :: r = let %ans = newPrompt empty res in res where
res :: Direct r r
res = unsafePerformIO $ do
let catchEsc e' = evaluate (id $!! e') `catchDyn`
\err@(i, Cell result) ->
if i == promptID %ans
then catchEsc $ unsafeCoerce# result
else throwDyn err
catchEsc e
It is interesting to observe that in case of the error monad, this code uses
the IO
monad's exception handling mechanism to propagate the error.
Finally, we need to check the unsafe features are used in a safe way as
described above. The unsafeCoerce#
calls are always coercing to type
r
and it is clear that always the same r
is in scope which we are
ensuring using the i == promptID
check. unsafePerformIO
is only
used for a "pure exception handling", which destroys purity, but still
satisfies the weaker condition that the behavior does not depend on the outside
world, which is essential here, as we rely on the property that a computation
performs exactly the same steps when rerun.
Reflection and Reification
With working shift
and reset
functions, we can now turn to monadic
reflection primitives. We first consider the case of the continuation monad.
Reflecting the Cont Monad
#!syntax haskell
reflectCont :: Cont r a -> Direct r a
reflectCont (Cont f) = shift f
reifyCont :: DeepSeq r => Direct r a -> Cont r a
reifyCont e = Cont $ \k -> reset (k e)
As an example, we lift the function callCC
from Control.Monad.Cont
to direct-style.
#!syntax haskell
callCC' :: DeepSeq r => ((a -> b) -> Direct r a) -> Direct r a
callCC' f = reflectCont $ callCC $ \c -> reifyCont $ f $ reflectCont . c
However, the call/cc
operation can be implemented much more nicely using
only two shift
s, as in
#!syntax haskell
callCC' :: ((forall b. a -> b) -> Direct r a) -> Direct r a
callCC' f = shift $ \k -> k $ f (\x -> shift $ \_ -> k x)
In both versions, the expression
#!syntax haskell
reset (callCC' (\k x -> k (x+)) 5) :: Int
correctly evaluates to 10
. It is a nice exercise to do this in Haskell's
continuation monad; but be warned that it is a little harder than the above
direct-style version.
Reflecting Arbitrary Monads
Now, implementing reflect
and reify
is easier than in Filinski's
implementation in SML, because the stronger static guarantees of our shift
and reset
functions eliminate the need for unsafe coercion functions.
#!syntax haskell
-- Type alias for more concise type signatures of direct-style code.
type Monadic m a = forall r. Direct (m r) a
reflect :: Monad m => m a -> Monadic m a
reflect m = shift (\k -> k =<< m)
reify :: (DeepSeq (m a), Monad m) => Monadic m a -> m a
reify t = reset (return t)
Interface
For quick reference, we repeat the type signatures of the most important library functions.
#!syntax haskell
type Direct r a = (%ans :: Prompt r) => a
shift :: ((a -> r) -> Direct r r) -> Direct r a
reset :: DeepSeq r => Direct r r -> r
type Monadic m a = forall r. Direct (m r) a
reflect :: Monad m => m a -> Monadic m a
reify :: (DeepSeq (m a), Monad m) => Monadic m a -> m a
Resolving Ambiguities
The use of linear implicit parameters comes with a few surprises. The GHC manual #ref6 6 even writes
- quote
So the semantics of the program depends on whether or not foo has a type
signature. Yikes!
You may say that this is a good reason to dislike linear implicit parameters
and you'd be right. That is why they are an experimental feature.
However, most of the problems can be circumvented quite easily, and the property that the meaning of a program can depend on the signatures given is actually a good thing.
Recursive Functions
Indeed, omitting a type signature can sometimes result in a different
behavior. Consider the following code, where
shift (\k -> k n)
and n
should behave identically.
#!syntax haskell
-- Without the explicit signature for k GHC does not infer a
-- sufficiently general type.
down 0 = []
down (n+1) = shift (\(k::Int -> [Int]) -> k n): down n
* Main> reset (down 4)
[3,3,3,3] -- wrong!
GHC considers the function down
to be monomorphically recursive, but in
fact the recursive call to down
should be in a different context (with
the implicit parameter bound to a different value), so down
should
actually be polymorphically recursive. This is semantically different and
ensures the linearity. We can persuade GHC to treat it correctly by giving the
function an explicit signature.
#!syntax haskell
down' :: Int -> Direct [Int] [Int]
{- ... -}
* Main> reset (down' 4)
[3,2,1,0] -- right!
Furthermore, we have to watch out for a GHC bug #ref10 10 that appears
to happen when expressions with differently polymorphic linear implicit
parameter constraints are unified. In the above example, this occurs when
k
's explicit type signature is dropped and the signature of down
is
not generalized to Int -> Direct r [Int]
.
Higher order functions
Implicit parameters are particularly tricky when functions using implicit parameters are passed to higher order functions. Consider the following example.
#!syntax haskell
-- The prelude definition of the function map
map :: (a -> b) -> [a] -> [b]
map _ [] = []
map f (x:xs) = f x : map f xs
foo :: [[Int]]
foo = reify (map f [1,2,3]) where
f :: Int -> Monadic [] Int
f x = reflect [-x,x]
* Main> foo
[[-1,-1,-1],[1,1,1]] -- wrong!
The first surprise is that this code type checks at all: The type of the
function f
is Int -> Monadic [] Int
but in order to be passed to
map
, the function f
must have the different type
Monadic [] (Int -> Int)
.
GHC pushes contexts at covariant argument positions as far to the
left as possible using a technique called for-all-hoisting #ref6 6,
which is of course sensible for type class constraints and implicit parameters,
but destroys the linearity, which seems bad even in the motivating examples of
random number or fresh name generation, and is only OK in the !QuickCheck
example. So we always have to watch out for effectful functions that are passed
as parameters, but at least we can copy the implementation of the higher order
functions we want to use.
#!syntax haskell
map' :: (a -> Direct r b) -> [a] -> Direct r [b]
{- Implementation as above -}
foo = reify (map' f [1,2,3]) where {- ... -}
* Main> foo
[[-1,-2,-3],[-1,-2,3],[-1,2,-3],[-1,2,3],[1,-2,-3],[1,-2,3],[1,2,-3],
[1,2,3]] -- right!
The Monomorphism Restriction
What should the expression
#!syntax haskell
reify (let x = reflect [0,1] in [x,x+2,x+4])
evaluate to? Two possibilities come to mind: Either we choose a value for the
variable x
first, and then evaluate the lists [x,x+2,x+4]
or we
view x
as the reflected list [0,1]
and the choice whether x
stands for 0
or 1
is made whenever x
it is evaluated. It is
immediately clear how both variants can be achieved in monadic style.
#!syntax haskell
* Main> do x <- [0,1]; return [x,x+2,x+4]
[[0,2,4],[1,3,5]]
* Main> let x = [0,1] in sequence [x,(+2) `fmap` x, (+4) `fmap` x]
[[0,2,4],[0,2,5],[0,3,4],[0,3,5],[1,2,4],[1,2,5],[1,3,4],[1,3,5]]
In direct style, this is even easier, but the meaning of our code now depends on the type signature.
#!syntax haskell
* Main> reify (let x :: Int; x = reflect [0,1] in [x,x+2,x+4])
[[0,2,4],[1,3,5]]
* Main> reify (let x :: Monadic [] Int; x = reflect [0,1] in [x,x+2,x+4])
[[0,2,4],[0,2,5],[0,3,4],[0,3,5],[1,2,4],[1,2,5],[1,3,4],[1,3,5]]
It is important that we give a real type signature:
x :: Int = reflect [0,1]
does not make any difference!
This is a nice and very natural way to describe both situations, but the
answer to the question which one GHC chooses when no signature is given is less
satisfactory: It depends on the status of the flag
-f(no)monomorphism-restriction
.
With the monomorphism "restriction" #ref11 11 turned on, x
must have
a monomorphic type, so the first situation applies, without the restriction
x
gets the most general type which leads to the second behavior. In my
opinion, it would be nice if there were a flag that, in order to give the
programmer a chance to disambiguate his code, causes a warning to be emitted
whenever the monomorphism restriction kicks in; a similar warning has been
proven useful to detect numeric defaulting.
Examples
We now present some examples reflecting the Cont
and []
monads.
Lazy Evaluation
The use of monads in Haskell models an impure language with call-by-value
semantics. This is not surprising as one motivation for the use of monads is
the need to do IO. For IO, evaluation order is important and call-by-value
makes evaluation order easier to reason about. For the IO
monad this
certainly the right decision, and if desired, the unsafeInterleaveIO
function can be used to execute IO
operations lazily.
But such a lazy monadic behavior would be practical for other monads, too: The list monad is very susceptible to space leaks and unnecessary recomputation. The reflected list monad, however, is often closer to the desired behavior, as the following examples suggest.
#!syntax haskell
-- Lazy repeat, Prelude.repeat would allow the side effect
-- of the argument to take place only once
repeat' :: Direct r a -> Direct r [a]
repeat' x = x:repeat' x
* Main> take 3 `fmap` sequence (repeat [1,2::Int])
<< Does not terminate. >>
* Main> reify (take 3 $ repeat' (reflect [1,2::Int]))
[[1,1,1],[1,1,2],[1,2,1],[1,2,2],[2,1,1],[2,1,2],[2,2,1],[2,2,2]]
* Main> fst `fmap` liftM2 (,) [1,2::Int] [3,4::Int]
[1,1,2,2]
* Main> reify (fst (reflect [1,2::Int], reflect [3,4::Int]))
[1,2]
* Main> reify (fst $!! (reflect [1,2::Int], reflect [3,4::Int]))
[1,1,2,2]
The last expression shows that we can easily revert to the eager version by adding appropriate strictness annotations.
Filtering Permutations
As a typical problem where the lazy behavior of our implementation is advantageous, we consider a small combinatorial example: Find all permutations of
#!latex
$(1,2,4,...,2^{n-1})$
such that all the sums of the initial sequences of the permutations are primes.
#!syntax haskell
-- NB. This section's example code can be found in the files Perms.*.
-- _very_ simple primality test.
isPrime :: Int -> Bool
isPrime n = n >= 2 && all (\k -> n `mod` k /= 0)
(takeWhile (\k -> k*k <= n) $ 2:[3,5..])
-- check if all the initial sums are primes.
goodPerm :: [Int] -> Bool
goodPerm xs = all isPrime (scanl1 (+) xs)
If we want to solve the problem in Haskell, we need to make a big compromise:
Either we take the easy road and generate a list of the permutations and then
filter
the good ones, which is unfortunately very slow because all
permutations must be checked even if it already turns out after inspecting
a few list elements that no permutation starting this way can have the property.
Alternatively, we can hand-optimize the algorithm by performing the construction of the permutation step-wise and interleaving the primality checks appropriately. In our example, this is not really hard and the list monad is a great help, but it feels low-level, error-prone and lacks modularity. We would like the declarativity of the first approach while retaining the speed improvements the lazy checking provides.
So, should we to switch to another language? An obvious candidate is curry #ref12 12, a lazily evaluated hybrid functional-logic language with a very Haskell-like syntax and feel. Curry allows nondeterministic functions to be written by simply declaring the function multiple times; however, the nondeterminacy cannot be expressed on the type level. Using monadic reflection, we can do something very similar as follows.
#!syntax haskell
-- nondeterministic choice
(?) :: DeepSeq a => Monadic [] a -> Monadic [] a -> Monadic [] a
x ? y = reflect (reify x `mplus` reify y)
-- nondeterministically select a permutation
permute :: [Int] -> Monadic [] [Int]
permute [] = []
permute xs = y: permute ys where
y::Int; ys::[Int]
(y,ys) = select xs
select :: [Int] -> Monadic [] (Int,[Int])
select [] = reflect []
select (x:xs) = (x,xs) ? second (x:) (select xs) where
-- a special case of Control.Arrow.second
second f (x,y) = (x,f y)
Now we only need to ensure that the computation fails when the permutation does not have the desired property.
#!syntax haskell
solve :: Int -> Monadic [] [Int]
solve n = if goodPerm xs then xs else reflect [] where
xs :: [Int]
xs = permute $ map (2^) [0..n-1]
* Main> reify (solve 17)
[[2,1,4,1024,512,16,8,65536,128,4096,32,16384,32768,256,8192,64,2048],
[2,1,4,1024,512,16,2048,16384,8192,65536,32768,64,32,256,128,4096,8]]
The relative performance of the different approaches is not surprising: The
manual Haskell solution (GHC) is the fastest, the Curry solution (Muenster
Curry) is about six times slower while the solution using monadic reflection is
another four times slower (and gets slightly worse for larger values of
n
), since a lot of recomputation is implied by the way shift
and
reset
are implemented. Finally, the naÔve solution would probably take
years to finish.
Further Ideas
This section discusses some further directions in which the ideas of this article might be extended.
Denotational Semantics
The relationship between laziness and direct-style continuation effects,
despite often following the intuition, needs some further clarification.
For that purpose, I wrote two interpreters of a simple untyped combinator
language, which use a continuation-like monad and the monadic reflection
library, respectively. They can be checked for coincidence using !QuickCheck
tests generating type-checking expressions for the language. The monad
the interpreter is built upon is an ST
monad augmented with continuations
of answer type Int
using the ContT
transformer.
#!syntax haskell
newtype Eval s a
= Eval { runEval :: ContT Int (ST s) a }
deriving (Functor, Monad)
The interpreter maps the source language's expressions into the following universal type.
#!syntax haskell
type U s = Eval s (Ref s `Either` U' s)
data U' s
= Int { runInt :: Int }
| Fun { runFun :: U s -> U s }
| List { runList :: Maybe (U s, U s) }
newtype Ref s = Ref { unRef :: STRef s (U' s `Either` U s) }
So an U s
is either a reference or a value of type U' s
; references
either point to a thunk of type U s
or to an evaluated value of type
U' s
. Laziness is provided by two functions of the following types.
#!syntax haskell
-- Delays a computation
delay :: U s -> U s
-- Force evaluation of a reference to a normal form.
force :: U s -> Eval s (U' s)
Details can be found in the [attachment:Reflection.tar.gz tarball] provided with this article. The distribution also contains two interpreters for a strict version of the language, which can be more straightforwardly implemented using the plain continuation monad and, in case of the direct-style interpreter, some strictness annotations.
A Lightweight Notation for Monads
Haskell's do-notation is often criticized being too verbose, especially for commutative monads; and the process of transforming pure functions into monadic style because some (possibly deeply nested) function needs some effects is tedious and error-prone.
GHC already has special support for the (commutative) reader monad, through
implicit parameters. This special rÙle of the reader monad might be justified
by additional properties this monad has, for example that there are
isomorphisms of type m (a -> b) -> a -> m b
and
m (a, b) -> (m a, m b)
whose inverses are given by
\f x -> f `ap` return x
and liftM2 (,)
, respectively.
Also, special tools #ref13 13 are being developed that automatically
transform a function from direct into monadic style, but this process
requires arbitrary decisions where to apply effects, e.g. it is unclear if
a function of type Int -> Bool
should be monadified to a function of
type Monad m => m Int -> m Bool
or Monad m => Int -> m Bool
, as
both make sense in different circumstances.
As we showed in this article, Haskell's type system is almost ready to express these differences on the type level; the only remaining problem is that forall-hoisting [6] changes the meaning of expressions. On the other hand, because of the interaction with laziness, keeping the semantics of the library described in this article would result in a rather complicated translation, as we saw in the last section. In order to get rid of this obscurity, one might imagine a type-directed translation which translates (pseudo-code)
#!syntax haskell
reflect :: m a -> (<m> => a)
reify :: Monad m => (<m> => a) -> m a
foo :: <[]> => Int
foo = reflect [0,2] + reflect [0,1]
bar :: [Int]
bar = reify foo
more strictly into
#!syntax haskell
foo :: [Int]
foo = (+) `fmap` [0,2] `ap` [0,1]
bar :: [Int]
bar = foo
However, this contradicts Haskell's philosophy to make invocation of effects as explicit as possible, and would probably be considered an "underkill". Moreover, it would require a decent solution to the monomorphism restriction problem.
Conclusion
Do not take this too seriously: Our code heavily relies on unsafe and
experimental features; time and space usage are increased by the suboptimal
encoding of continuations and the recomputations; and the number of supported
monads is limited by the DeepSeq
requirement.
However, we provided a framework with strong static guarantees in which it is
easy to experiment with the unfamiliar shift
and reset
operators,
and we learned that GHC Haskell's type system goes well beyond
Hindley-Milner and it is almost ready for an impure language where effects are
declared explicitly on the type level.
More importantly, it is great fun to abuse just about every unsafe feature of (GHC) Haskell, to create an impure sublanguage with monadic effects.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the GHC team for this great compiler with its many fascinating extensions.
I also want to thank Peter Eriksen, Cale Gibbard and Don Stewart for proof-reading the article and their valuable suggestions, as well as Brandon Moore and Autrijus Tang for their advice on the references.
References
Anchor(ref1) [1] Olivier Danvy and Andrzej Filinski. "A Functional Abstraction of Typed Contexts". DIKU. DIKU Rapport 89/12. July 1989. Available online: http://www.daimi.au.dk/~danvy/Papers/fatc.ps.gz
Anchor(ref2) [2] Chung-chieh Shan. "Shift to Control". 2004 Scheme Workshop. September 2004. Available online: http://repository.readscheme.org/ftp/papers/sw2004/shan.pdf
Anchor(ref3) [3] R. Kent Dybvig, Simon Peyton-Jones, and Amr Sabry. "A Monadic Framework for Subcontinuations". February 2005. Available online: http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~sabry/papers/monadicSubcont.ps
Anchor(ref4) [4] Andrzej Filinski. Representing monads. In Conference Record of POPL '94: 21st ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, Portland, Oregon, pages 446--457. Available online: http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/filinski94representing.html
Anchor(ref5) [5] Philip Wadler. "The essence of functional programming". Invited talk, 19'th Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, ACM Press. January 1992. Available online: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/essence/essence.ps
Anchor(ref6) [6] The GHC Team. "The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System User's Guide, Version 6.4". BR Linear Implicit Parameters: http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/6.4/html/users_guide/type-extensions.html#implicit-parameters BR Implicit Parameters: http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/6.4/html/users_guide/type-extensions.html#linear-implicit-parameters BR Forall-Hoisting: http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/users_guide/type-extensions.html#hoist
Anchor(ref7) [7] Koen Claessen and John Hughes. "!QuickCheck: An Automatic Testing Tool for Haskell". http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~rjmh/QuickCheck/
Anchor(ref8) [8] Simon Peyton Jones. "Tackling the awkward squad: monadic input/output, concurrency, exceptions, and foreign-language calls in Haskell". In "Engineering theories of software construction, ed Tony Hoare, Manfred Broy, Ralf Steinbruggen, IOS Press, ISBN 1 58603 1724, 2001, pp47-96. Available online: http://research.microsoft.com/Users/simonpj/papers/marktoberdorf/mark.pdf
Anchor(ref9) [9] Dean Herington. "Enforcing Strict Evaluation". Mailing list post. http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2001-August/007712.html
Anchor(ref10) [10] Thomas J‰ger "Linear implicit parameters: linearity not enforced". Mailing list post. http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/glasgow-haskell-bugs/2005-March/004838.html
Anchor(ref11) [11] Simon Peyton Jones [editor] "The Revised Haskell Report". 2002. Section, 4.5.5, "The Monomorphism Restriction". http://www.haskell.org/onlinereport/decls.html#sect4.5.5
Anchor(ref12) [12] Michael Hanus [editor] "Curry. An Integrated Functional Logic Language". Available online: http://www.informatik.uni-kiel.de/~mh/curry/papers/report.pdf
Anchor(ref13) [13] "Monadification as a Refactoring". http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/projects/refactor-fp/Monadification.html