Table of Contents
In previous chapters we have presented rewrite rules as basic transformation steps. However, rules are not really atomic transformation actions. To see this, consider what happens when the rewrite rule
DAOL : And(Or(x, y), z) -> Or(And(x, z), And(y, z))
is applied. First it matches the subject term against the pattern
And(Or(x, y), z) in the left-hand side. This means that
a substitution for the variables x, y, and
z is sought, that makes the pattern equal to the
subject term. If the match fails, the rule fails. If the match
succeeds, the pattern Or(And(x, z), And(y, z)) on the
right-hand side is instantiated with the bindings found during the
match of the left-hand side. The instantiated term then replaces the
original subject term. Furthermore, the rule limits the scope of the
variables occurring in the rule. That is, the variables
x, y, z are local to this
rule. After the rule is applied the bindings to these variables are
invisible again.
Thus, rather than considering rules as the atomic actions of transformation programs, Stratego provides their constituents, that is building terms from patterns and matching terms against patterns, as atomic actions, and makes these available to the programmer. In this chapter, you will learn these basic actions and their use in the composition of more complex operations such as various flavours of rewrite rules.
The build operation !p replaces the subject term with
the instantiation of the pattern p using the bindings
from the environment to the variables occurring in p.
For example, the strategy !Or(And(x, z), And(y, z))
replaces the subject term with the instantiation of
Or(And(x, z), And(y, z)) using bindings to variables
x, y and z.
stratego>!Int("10") Int("10")stratego>!Plus(Var("a"), Int("10")) Plus(Var("a"), Int("10"))
It is possible to build terms with variables. We call this
building a term pattern. A pattern is a term with
meta-variables. The current term is replaced
by an instantiation of pattern p.
stratego>:binding e e is bound to Var("b")stratego>!Plus(Var("a"),e) Plus(Var("a"),Var("b"))stratego>!e Var("b")
Pattern matching allows the analysis of terms. The simplest case
is matching against a literal term.
The match operation ?t matches the subject term
against the term t.
Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))
stratego> ?Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))
stratego> ?Plus(Int("3"),Var("b"))
command failed
Matching against a term pattern with
variables binds those variables to (parts of) the current term.
The match strategy ?
compares the current term (xt) to
variable x. It binds variable
x to term t
in the environment. A variable can only be bound once, or to the
same term.
Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))
stratego> ?e
stratego> :binding e
e is bound to Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))
stratego> !Int("17")
stratego> ?e
command failed
The general case is matching against an arbitrary term pattern.
The match strategy ?
compares the current term to a pattern
pp. It will add bindings for the
variables in pattern p to the
environment. The wildcard _ in a match will match any
term.
Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))
stratego> ?Plus(e,_)
stratego> :binding e
e is bound to Var("a")
Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))
Patterns may be non-linear. Multiple occurences of the same variable can occur and each occurence matches the same term.
Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))
stratego> ?Plus(e,e)
command failed
stratego> !Plus(Var("a"),Var("a"))
stratego> ?Plus(e,e)
stratego> :binding e
e is bound to Var("a")
Non-linear pattern matching is a way to test equality of terms. Indeed the equality predicates from the Stratego Library are defined using non-linear pattern matching:
equal = ?(x, x) equal(|x) = ?x
The equal strategy tests whether the current term is a
a pair of the same terms.
The equal(|x) strategy tests whether the current term
is equal to the argument term.
stratego>equal = ?(x, x)stratego>!("a", "a") ("a", "a")stratego>equal ("a", "a")stratego>!("a", "b") ("a", "b")stratego>equal command failedstratego>equal(|x) = ?xstratego>!Foo(Bar()) Foo(Bar)stratego>equal(|Foo(Baz())) command failedstratego>equal(|Foo(Bar())) Foo(Bar)
Match and build are first-class citizens in Stratego, which means that they can be used and combined just like any other strategy expressions. In particular, we can implement rewrite rules using these operations, since a rewrite rule is basically a match followed by a build. For example, consider the following combination of match and build:
Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))
stratego> ?Plus(e1, e2); !Plus(e2, e1)
Plus(Int("3"),Var("a"))
This combination first recognizes a term, binds variables to the pattern in the match, and then replaces the current term with the instantiation of the build pattern. Note that the variable bindings are propagated from the match to the build.
Stratego provides syntactic sugar for various combinations of match and build. We'll explore these in the rest of this chapter.
An anonymous rewrite rule (p1 ->
p2) transforms a term matching p1 into an
instantiation of p2.
Such a rule is equivalent to the sequence ?p1; !p2.
Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))
stratego> (Plus(e1, e2) -> Plus(e2, e1))
Plus(Int("3"),Var("a"))
Once a variable is bound it cannot be rebound to a different
term. Thus, once we have applied an anonymous rule once, its
variables are bound and the next time it is applied it only
succeeds for the same term. For example, in the next session the
second application of the rule fails, because e2 is
bound to Int("3") and does not match with
Var("b").
stratego>!Plus(Var("a"),Int("3")) Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))stratego>(Plus(e1,e2) -> Plus(e2,e1)) Plus(Int("3"),Var("a"))stratego>:binding e1 e1 is bound to Var("a")stratego>:binding e2 e2 is bound to Int("3")stratego>!Plus(Var("a"),Var("b")) Plus(Var("a"),Var("b"))stratego>(Plus(e1,e2) -> Plus(e2,e1)) command failed
To use a variable name more than once Stratego provides
term variable scope.
A scope {x1,...,xn : s} locally undefines the
variables xi. That is, the binding to a variable
xi outside the scope is not visible inside it, nor is
the binding to xi inside the scope visible outside
it.
For example, to continue the session above, if we wrap the
anonymous swap rule in a scope for its variables, it can be
applied multiple times.
stratego>!Plus(Var("a"),Int("3")) Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))stratego>{e3,e4 : (Plus(e3,e4) -> Plus(e4,e3))} Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))stratego>:binding e3 e3 is not bound to a termstratego>!Plus(Var("a"),Var("b")) Plus(Var("a"),Var("b"))stratego>{e3,e4 : (Plus(e3,e4) -> Plus(e4,e3))} Plus(Var("b"),Var("a"))
Of course we can name such a scoped rule using a strategy definition, and then invoke it by its name:
stratego>SwapArgs = {e1,e2 : (Plus(e1,e2) -> Plus(e2,e1))}stratego>!Plus(Var("a"),Int("3")) Plus(Var("a"),Int("3"))stratego>SwapArgs Plus(Int("3"),Var("a"))
When using match and build directly in a strategy definition, rather than in the form of a rule, the definition contains free variables. Strictly speaking such variables should be declared using a scope, that is one should write
SwapArgs = {e1,e2 : (Plus(e1,e2) -> Plus(e2,e1))}
However, since declaring all variables at the top of a definition is destracting and does not add much to the definition, such a scope declaration can be left out. Thus, one can write
SwapArgs = (Plus(e1,e2) -> Plus(e2,e1))
instead. The scope is automatically inserted by the compiler. This implies that there is no global scope for term variables. Of course, variables in inner scopes should be declared where necessary. In particular, note that variable scope is not inserted for strategy definitions in a let binding, such as
let SwapArgs = (Plus(e1,e2) -> Plus(e2,e1)) in ... end
While the variables are bound in the enclosing definition, they are
not restricted to SwapArgs in this case, since in a let
you typically want to use bindings to variables in the enclosing
code.
Often it is useful to apply a strategy only to test whether some
property holds or to compute some auxiliary result. For this
purpose, Stratego provides the where(s) combinator,
which applies s to the current term, but restores that
term afterwards. Any bindings to variables are kept, however.
Plus(Int("14"),Int("3"))
stratego> where(?Plus(Int(i),Int(j)); <addS>(i,j) => k)
Plus(Int("14"),Int("3"))
stratego> :binding i
i is bound to "14"
stratego> :binding k
k is bound to "17"
With the match and build constructs where(s) is in fact
just syntactic sugar for {x: ?x; s; !x} with
x a fresh variable not occurring in s.
Thus, the current subject term is saved by
binding it to a new variable x, then the strategy
s is applied, and finally, the original term is
restored by building x.
We saw the use of where in the definition of
if-then-else in Chapter 15.
A simple rewrite rule succeeds if the match of the left-hand side
succeeds. Sometimes it is useful to place additional requirements on
the application of a rule, or to compute some value for use in the
right-hand side of the rule. This can be achieved with
conditional rewrite rules.
A conditional rule L: p1 -> p2 where s is a simple rule
extended with an additional computation s which should
succeed in order for the rule to apply.
The condition can be used to test properties of terms in the
left-hand side, or to compute terms to be used in the right-hand
side. The latter is done by binding such new terms to variables used
in the right-hand side.
For example, the EvalPlus rule in the following session
uses a condition to compute the sum of i and
j:
stratego>EvalPlus: Plus(Int(i),Int(j)) -> Int(k) where !(i,j); addS; ?kstratego>!Plus(Int("14"),Int("3")) Plus(Int("14"),Int("3"))stratego>EvalPlus Int("17")
A conditional rule can be desugared similarly to an unconditional rule. That is, a conditional rule of the form
L : p1 -> p2 where s
is syntactic sugar for
L = ?p1; where(s); !p2
Thus, after the match with p1 succeeds the strategy
s is applied to the subject term. Only if the
application of s succeeds, is the right-hand side
p2 built. Note that since s is applied
within a where, the build !p2 is applied
to the original subject term; only variable
bindings computed within s can be used in
p2.
As an example, consider the following constant folding rule, which reduces an addition of two integer constants to the constant obtained by computing the addition.
EvalPlus : Add(Int(i),Int(j)) -> Int(k) where !(i,j); addS; ?k
The addition is computed by applying the primitive strategy
add to the pair of integers (i,j) and
matching the result against the variable k, which is
then used in the right-hand side. This rule is desugared to
EvalPlus = ?Add(Int(i),Int(j)); where(!(i,j); addS; ?k); !Int(k)
Sometimes it is useful to define a rule anonymously within a strategy expression. The syntax for anonymous rules with scopes is a bit much since it requires enumerating all variables. A `lambda' rule of the form
\ p1 -> p2 where s \
is an anonymous rewrite rule for which the variables in the
left-hand side p1 are local to the rule, that is,
it is equivalent to an expression of the form
{x1,...,xn : (p1 -> p2 where s)}
with x1,...,xn the variables of
p1.
This means that any variables used in s and
p2 that do not occur in
p1 are bound in the context of the rule.
A typical example of the use of an anonymous rule is
stratego>![(1,2),(3,4),(5,6)] [(1,2),(3,4),(5,6)]stratego>map(\ (x, y) -> x \ ) [1,3,5]
One frequently occuring scenario is that of applying a strategy to a term and then matching the result against a pattern. This typically occurs in the condition of a rule. In the constant folding example above we saw this scenario:
EvalPlus : Add(Int(i),Int(j)) -> Int(k) where !(i,j); addS; ?k
In the condition, first the term (i,j) is built, then
the strategy addS is applied to it, and finally the
result is matched against the pattern k.
To improve the readability of such expressions, the following two
constructs are provided. The operation <s> p
captures the notion of applying a strategy to a
term, i.e., the scenario !p; s. The operation s
=> p capture the notion of applying a strategy to the current
subject term and then matching the result against the pattern
p, i.e., s; ?p. The combined operation
<s> p1 => p2 thus captures the notion of applying a
strategy to a term p1 and matching the result against
p2, i.e, !t1; s; ?t2. Using this notation
we can improve the constant folding rule above as
EvalPlus : Add(Int(i),Int(j)) -> Int(k) where <add>(i,j) => k
Applying Strategies in Build. Sometimes it useful to apply a strategy directly to a subterm of a pattern, for example in the right-hand side of a rule, instead of computing a value in a condition, binding the result to a variable, and then using the variable in the build pattern. The constant folding rule above, for example, could be further simplified by directly applying the addition in the right-hand side:
EvalPlus : Add(Int(i),Int(j)) -> Int(<add>(i,j))
This abbreviates the conditional rule above. In general, a strategy application in a build pattern can always be expressed by computing the application before the build and binding the result to a new variable, which then replaces the application in the build pattern.
Another example is the following definition of the
map(s) strategy, which applies a strategy to each term
in a list:
map(s) : [] -> [] map(s) : [x | xs] -> [<s> x | <map(s)> xs]
Term wrapping and projection are concise idioms for constructing terms that wrap the current term and for extracting subterms from the current term.
One often write rules of the form \ x -> Foo(Bar(x))\,
i.e. wrapping a term pattern around the current term. Using rule
syntax this is quite verbose. The syntactic abstraction of
term wraps, allows the concise specification of
such little transformations as !Foo(Bar(<id>)).
In general, a term wrap is a build strategy !p[<s>]
containing one or more strategy applications <s>
that are not applied to a term.
When executing the the build operation, each occurrence of such a
strategy application <s> is replaced with the term
resulting from applying s to the current subject term,
i.e., the one that is being replaced by the build.
The following sessions illustrate some uses of term wraps:
3stratego>!(<id>,<id>) (3,3)stratego>!(<Fst; inc>,<Snd>) (4,3)stratego>!"foobar" "foobar"stratego>!Call(<id>, []) Call("foobar", [])stratego>mod2 = <mod>(<id>,2)stratego>!6 6stratego>mod2 0
As should now be a common pattern, term projects are implemented by
translation to a combination of match and build expressions.
Thus, a term wrap !p[<s>] is translated to a strategy
expression
{x: where(s => x); !p[x]}
where x is a fresh variable not occurring in
s.
In other words, the strategy s is applied to the
current subject term, i.e., the term to which
the build is applied.
As an example, the term wrap !Foo(Bar(<id>)) is
desugared to the strategy
\{x: where(id => x); !Foo(Bar(x))}
which after simplification is equivalent to \{x: ?x;
!Foo(Bar(x))\}, i.e., exactly the original lambda rule
\ x -> Foo(Bar(x))\.
Term projections are the match dual of term wraps.
Term projections can be used to project a
subterm from a term pattern. For example, the expression
?And(<id>,x) matches terms of the form
And(t1,t2) and reduces them to the first subterm
t1.
Another example is the strategy
map(?FunDec(<id>,_,_))
which reduces a list of function declarations to a list of the
names of the functions, i.e., the first arguments of the
FunDec constructor.
Here are some more examples:
[1,2,3]stratego>?[_|<id>] [2,3]stratego>!Call("foobar", []) Call("foobar", [])stratego>?Call(<id>, []) "foobar"
Term projections can also be used to apply additional constraints
to subterms in a match pattern. For example, ?Call(x,
<?args; length => 3>) matches only with function calls
with three arguments.
A match expression ?p[<s>] is desugared as
{x: ?p[x]; <s> x}
That is, after the pattern p[x] matches, it is reduced
to the subterm bound to x to which s is
applied. The result is also the result of the projection.
When multiple projects are used within a match the outcome is
undefined, i.e., the order in which the projects will be performed
can not be counted on.