Point-Free Libtool

Copyright (c) 2018 Andrew Gozillon & Paul Keir, University of the West of Scotland.

The Tool

The Point-Free Clang Libtool is a console application that will convert pointful template metafunctions to point-free template metafunction classes (MFC). The output point-free template metafunctions utilise an m_invoke typedef member template, which is compatible with the eval alias template from the Curtains metaprogramming library. The Curtains library allows implicit currying of MFCs. In some cases the generated MFCs are more concise than the original pointful implementations. The project is inspired by the Haskell pointfree tool (http://hackage.haskell.org/package/pointfree).

What is a Point-Free function?

Point-Free programming is a style of programming where functions are designed with no explicit arguments (in contrast, a pointful function has arguments, each parameter a "point"). Instead, functions are created by the composition or partial application of a curated set of higher-order functions or combinators. The final composition of these combinators still accepts the same number of parameters; and manipulates them to produce an identical result. This style of programming, also known as tacit programming, can lead to more concise function definitions and is encountered in functional programming languages like Haskell.

The following simple example "converts" a pointful lambda function to a point-free function using the Haskell pointfree command-line tool. The result, const, assumes that the user has the const combinator available to them; though note that the tool uses only a subset of functions from the Haskell Prelude.

$ pf \x y -> x
const

The result from a similar example makes use of another elementary combinator, id; and also relies on Haskell's implicit currying:

$ pf \x y -> y
const id

Point-Free Template Metaprogramming?

As with the Haskell pointfree tool, users of our tool are encouraged to have fun, and explore the point-free idiom; potentially re-using existing metafunction combinators from the Curtains library.

Our Point-Free tool expects the user to provide three things: a file name; the name of a class template (i.e. the metafunction); and the name of the typedef member containing the metafunction result (the name type is used by default). By providing the class template within a file, we allow the user to make use of auxiliary classes in the definition of each class template.

Everything following -- is an argument directed towards the Clang compiler rather than the tool itself. In this case we've elected to set the standard and pass the Curtains library to it.

The following C++ code excert can be compared to the first Haskell example above. Here the pointful metafunction class template First "returns" the first template argument via the type member.

template <class T, class U>
struct First { using type = T; };

Should the First definition exist within a file called TemplateTest.cpp, the following invocation of the Point-Free libtool will output const_ - being an elementary MFC analogue of the Haskell const within the Curtains library:

$ point-free TemplateTest.cpp -classname=First -membername=type -- -std=c++17 -I ~/projects/curtains
const_

We are then able to make the following two assertions:

static_assert(std::is_same_v<First<int,char>::type,int>);
static_assert(std::is_same_v<First<int,char>::type,eval<const_,int,char>>);

Reproducing the second Haskell example will likewise also involve the common id combinator. More significantly though, const id is a curried expression, and the result makes use of the intrinsic currying offered by the eval alias template from the Curtains library.

template <class T, class U>
struct Second { using type = U; };

So, with the Second class template definition above, also located within TemplateTest.cpp, the following invocation will produce the expected result:

$ point-free TemplateTest.cpp -classname=Second -membername=type -- -std=c++17 -I ~/projects/curtains
eval<const_,id>

We are then able to make the following two assertions:

static_assert(std::is_same_v<Second<int,char>::type,char>);
static_assert(std::is_same_v<Second<int,char>::type,eval<eval<const_,id>,int,char>>);

Building

This project needs to be compiled in conjunction with the Clang/LLVM compiler (https://github.com/llvm-mirror/clang & https://github.com/llvm-mirror/llvm).

If you follow the steps provided in Clang's "Getting Started" tutorial (https://clang.llvm.org/get_started.html) then you simply need to copy the contents of this repository into the Tools/Extra directory of the Clang project (the Extra directory is an optional directory of Clang, Step 4 of Clang's "Getting Started" gives direction on where to place it). Rather than overwrite Clang's existing CMakeLists.txt file with the one from this repository, instead copy the relevant instructions into the file from the Clang repository.

Once the Point-Free folder is in the correct place and you're on Step 7 of Clang's "Getting Started" tutorial you must add a few additional compile flags when invoking CMake (namely runtime type information and exception handling):

cmake -DLLVM_ENABLE_RTTI:BOOL=TRUE -DLLVM_ENABLE_EH:BOOL=TRUE ../llvm

Afterwards you can simply invoke:

make point-free

instead of:

make clang

It is notable that as this tool is a Libtool it's possible that it may have some minor inconsistency with later versions of Clang (Clang 6.0 should work), these differences should be small and will manifest as errors during compilation. If any are found feel free to email: andrew.gozillon@uws.ac.uk or submit a pull request if you fix them yourself!

Links

Curtains API Repository: https://github.com/pkeir/curtains

Test File Repository: https://github.com/agozillon/point-free-tests