20070726

The impossible is possible : Irrefutable patterns.

Earlier this year I wrote about a regular expression code engine I was writing in Haskell that didn't work because of a recursive call problem. I was fairly sure the code could work if I had a way to inform the compiler of the needed laziness, a way to allow a number of different functions that each depended on the output of the each other as their inputs to execute, but believed that the way Haskell worked would permanently prevent this. Earlier today, linuxer on Reddit linked to an article concerning Irrefutable patterns, and I had what felt like an epiphany.

Remembering the code, I went back and corrected it only by adding the needed tilde to specify that the patterns should be irrefutable in the oexn function definitions. A few bugs fixes later, and the code works.


-- rx : a regular expression engine for haskell
-- : (c) 2007 by michael speer , released GPL v2.0 license or later

import Maybe

-- get-function : gather a nodes worth of pattern from a pattern-string
-- returns the segment and the remaining pattern in a tuple
gf :: [Char] -> ( [Char] , [Char] )
gf ('(':ps) = let ( segment , remaining ) = gpf [] ps
in ( '(':segment , remaining )
where
-- get-parenthesis'd fragment
gpf :: [Char] -> [Char] -> ( [Char] , [Char] )
gpf segment [] = ( segment , [] )
gpf segment (')':ps) = ( segment++")" , ps )
gpf segment ('(':ps) = let ( subsegment , remaining ) = gpf [] ps
in gpf ( segment ++ ('(':subsegment) ) remaining
gpf segment (p:ps) = gpf (segment ++ p:[]) ps
gf ('\\':p:ps) = ( '\\':p:[] , ps )
gf ('?':'?':ps) = ( "??" , ps )
gf ('*':'?':ps) = ( "*?" , ps )
gf (p:ps) = ( p:[] , ps )

-- list-functions : creates a list of function-pattern-segments from a regular expression
lfn :: [Char] -> [[Char]]
lfn [] = []
lfn pps = let ( fn , remaining ) = gf pps
in fn : lfn remaining

-- postfix-to-prefix : moves all repitition characters to before their targets
-- in addition running the pattern through this function
-- ensures that the pattern is legal.
p2p :: [[Char]] -> [[Char]]
p2p [] = []
p2p (('?':_):_) = error "Misplaced repitition operator `?' "
p2p (('*':_):_) = error "Misplaced repitition operator `*' "
p2p ("\\":_) = error "Escape sequence targetting nothing"
p2p ((')':_):[]) = ")" : [] -- allows for a close-parum at end of pattern
-- later processing must test for this and throw error if it is unexpected ( eg top-level
p2p ((')':_):_) = error "Unmatched terminating group marker , `)' " -- catches mid pattern erroneous close-para
p2p ("|":('?':_):_) = error "Repitition operator `?' applied to procedural alternation operator `|' "
p2p (s1:s2@("??"):ps) = ('?':'?': s1) : p2p ps
p2p (s1:s2@("?"):ps) = ('?': s1) : p2p ps
p2p (s1:s2@("*?"):ps) = ('*':'?': s1) : p2p ps
p2p (s1:s2@("*"):ps) = ('*': s1) : p2p ps
p2p (s1:ps) = s1 : p2p ps

-- group-split : break the contents of a parenthesized group into peices
-- build a current list of segments until | is encountered
-- then append the result of calling this again on the
-- remainder
data PatternDepth = Top | Sub -- Pattern depth
gs :: PatternDepth -> [ [ Char ] ] -> [ [ Char ] ] -> [ [ [ Char ] ] ]
gs Top segments (")":[]) = error "Unmatched terminating group marker `)' at end of pattern"
gs Sub segments (")":[]) = gs Sub segments []
gs _ segments [] = if segments /= [] then
segments : []
else
[""] : []
gs pd segments ("|":rest) = segments : gs pd [] rest
gs pd segments (s:rest) = gs pd (segments++[s]) rest

-- many to single nodes
m2s :: [ [ ( Maybe Char , Integer ) ] ] -> Integer -> ( ( Maybe Char , Integer ) , [ [ ( Maybe Char , Integer ) ] ] , Integer )
m2s (g@(ni:[]):gs) n = ( ni , gs , n ) -- if the first list is one long, pop it off
m2s ggs n = ( ( Nothing , (n+1) ) , ggs , n+1 ) -- otherwise add a new member at the beginning to act as a pointer to it

-- or-extracted-nodes
oexn :: [ [ [ Char ] ] ] -> Integer -> Integer -> ( [ ( Maybe Char , Integer ) ] , [ [ ( Maybe Char , Integer ) ] ] , Integer )
oexn (g:[]) n l = let ( ~( ns , x ) ,
~( ni' , ns' , x' ) ) = ( aexn g x' l ,
m2s ns n )
in ( [ ni' ] , ns' , x )

oexn (g:g':[]) n l = let ( ~( ns , x ) ,
~( ni' , ns' , x' ) ,
~( ns'' , x'' ) ,
~( ni''' , ns''' , x''' ) ) = ( aexn g x' l ,
m2s ns n ,
aexn g' x''' l ,
m2s ns'' x )
in
( ni' : ni''' : [] , ns' ++ ns''' , (x''-1) )

oexn (g:gs) n l = let ( ~( ns , x ) ,
~( ni' , ns' , x' ) ,
~( ni'' , ns'' , x'' ) ) = ( aexn g x' l ,
m2s ns n ,
oexn gs x l )
in
( ni' : ni'' , ns' ++ ns'' , (x''-1) )

-- and-extracted-nodes
aexn :: [ [ Char ] ] -> Integer -> Integer -> ( [ [ ( Maybe Char , Integer ) ] ] , Integer )
aexn (b:[]) n l = exn b n l
aexn (b:bs) n l = let ( ~( ns , x ) ,
~( ns' , x' ) ) = ( exn b n x ,
aexn bs x l )
in
( ns ++ ns' , x' )

-- subgroup
exn :: [ Char ] -> Integer -> Integer -> ( [ [ ( Maybe Char , Integer ) ] ] , Integer )
exn ('(':cs) n l = let ~( ni , ns , x ) = oexn (gs Sub [] $ p2p $ lfn cs ) n l
in
( [ ni ] ++ ns , x )

-- non-greedy
exn ('?':'?':cs) n l = let ~( ni , ns , x ) = oexn (gs Top [] $ p2p $ lfn cs ) (n+1) x
in
( [ [ ( Nothing , l ) , ( Nothing , (n+1) ) ] ] ++ [ ni ] ++ ns , x )

-- greedy
exn ('?':cs) n l = let ~( ni , ns , x ) = oexn (gs Top [] $ p2p $ lfn cs ) (n+1) x
in
( [ [ ( Nothing , (n+1) ) , ( Nothing , l ) ] ] ++ [ ni ] ++ ns , x )

-- non-greedy
exn ('*':'?':cs) n l = let ~( ni , ns , x ) = oexn (gs Top [] $ p2p $ lfn cs ) (n+1) n
in
( [ [ ( Nothing , l ) , ( Nothing , (n+1) ) ] ] ++ [ ni ] ++ ns , x )

-- greedy
exn ('*':cs) n l = let ~( ni , ns , x ) = oexn (gs Top [] $ p2p $ lfn cs ) (n+1) n
in
( [ [ ( Nothing , (n+1) ) , ( Nothing , l ) ] ] ++ [ ni ] ++ ns , x )

exn (c:_) n l = ( [ [ ( Just c , l ) ] ] , (n+1) )
exn [] n l = ( [ [ ( Nothing , l ) ] ] , (n+1) )

-- compile a regular expression into a DFA array
rx_compile pps = let ~( ni , ns , x ) = oexn (gs Top [] $ p2p $ lfn pps ) 1 x
in
if ni == []
then
( ns , x )
else
( ni : ns , x )

main = do
-- print $ test
-- print $ lfn test
-- print $ p2p $ lfn test
print $ rx_compile "ab?c" -- arrayed !
print $ rx_compile "()*" -- if you do something stupid, the system will not protect you.


What this will currently do is to convert a string like "ab?c" into a list containing lists each item of which specify where to go next in matching. For example, the given pattern would end up as


( [ [ (Just 'a',2) ] ,
[ (Nothing ,3) , (Nothing,4) ] ,
[ (Just 'b',4) ] ,
[ (Just 'c',5) ]
] ,
5
)


This list is returned in a tuple with a number representing one over the length of the list. This is were the next item would go if the list were still being built.

A parser that accepts a string and uses this structure as a ruleset in matching it should be trivial to make.

Thanks for the link linuxer.

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(2) the subculture of the compulsive programmer, whose ethics prescribe that one silly idea and a month of frantic coding should suffice to make him a life-long millionaire. --ewd1036