Ecosyste.ms: Awesome
An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.
https://github.com/ioannad/lambda
A mirror of https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/idimitriou/lambda A toy interpreter and compiler of the untyped λ calculus, written in common lisp.
https://github.com/ioannad/lambda
Last synced: 3 days ago
JSON representation
A mirror of https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/idimitriou/lambda A toy interpreter and compiler of the untyped λ calculus, written in common lisp.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/ioannad/lambda
- Owner: ioannad
- Created: 2019-06-27T22:33:36.000Z (over 5 years ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2022-02-07T23:45:01.000Z (almost 3 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2023-07-28T11:28:47.669Z (over 1 year ago)
- Language: Common Lisp
- Homepage:
- Size: 43 KB
- Stars: 2
- Watchers: 0
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# lambda
#### A toy interpreter and compiler of the untyped λ calculus, written in common lisp.
A toy compiler of the untyped lambda calculus into common lisp (so far), written in common lisp, with an interpreter and a user interface (UI).
The UI includes a viewer of all available transformations of a user-input λ term, as well as two simple REPLs.
The viewer can also evaluate terms before listing their different representations, and therefore is the recommended part of the UI (Church arithmetic support TBA).
##### Goal
The goal of this project is to compile the untyped λ calculus and extensions thereof into several targets, such as a stack machine (WebAssembly in mind), and some assembly languages.
For learning and understanding compilers, therefore I write most of it by hand. Written in common lisp because I am most comfortable with this language.
## Try it!
Requirements
- Common Lisp REPL (SBCL and CCL tested) with Quicklisp installed
Clone this repository to a directory where Quicklisp can find it, for example in `quicklisp/local-projects/` or in whatever `(:tree ...)` you have in `~/.config/common-lisp/repos.conf`.
In your Common Lisp REPL evaluate:
```
(ql:quickload "lambda")
(in-package :lambda.ui)
(main)
```
You'll be prompted:
```
Input which UI to use:
3 for the transformation viewer
2 for the church REPL
1 for the base REPL
0 to exit
Anything else will return help instructions.
```
The UI help instructions include the BNF of the standard syntax of this λ calculus, and a short description of each menu options. Each UI mode starts with help instructions specific to the UI mode, examples of usage, and the set of self encoded primitives, such as `:ID :TRUE :FALSE :S :AND :OR :IF :Y :OMEGA`, which you can use when entering a λ term.
#### Examples of λ terms, without and with primitives, and of reductions.
Note that only single variable abstractions are allowed.
Without primitives:
```
d
(x y)
(λ a (λ b (a b))
```
With primitives:
```
((:or :true) a)
(((:if :false) a ) b)
```
In the UI's "base REPL", the above evaluate to `:true` and `b`, respectively.
## Implementation features
- A User Interface (UI) in the package `:lambda.ui` (call `(main)`) using self-encoded primitives (encoded as λ terms).
The UI includes:
+ A transformation viewer: Input a λ TERM and see its available representations (see next list item). Evaluate the TERM before returning the different representations with =:eval TERM=. In the TERM you can use the same primitives as the `λ.base` REPL below.
+ Two simple Read Eval Print Loops (REPLs) for this λ calculus:
* `λ.base` allows you to use the following symbols as self-encoded primitives: `:ID :TRUE :FALSE :S :AND :OR :IF :Y :OMEGA`
* `λ.church` allows you to use base, as well as numbers in your statements, and the following symbols as primitives for numeric functions:
`:A+ :A* :Aexp :Azero? :A+1 :A-1 :A-factorial`, for plus, times, exponent, zero test, successor, predecessor, and factorial.
- Showcases representations of lambda terms in my quest to understand compilers.
So far, showcased representations of lambda terms are the following.
+ The standard, single variable binding, parenthesised lambda terms as quoted common-lisp lists, for example, `'(^ x (x y))`.
+ De Bruijn representation (locally nameless for open terms), the example becomes `'(^ (0 y))`.
+ A common lisp representation, the example becomes `'(lambda (x) (funcall x y))`.
+ An implementation of Tromp's
* combinatorial logic representation in the form of SKI-calculus (towards a stack machine - WebAssembly),
* and his binary representation.
+ TBA: Implementation of Mogensen's continuation passing style self encoding of lambda calculus (Mogensen-Scott encoding).
+ I provide transformations between defined representations.
- Lazy, normal order, and applicative order reducers, with respective steppers and self-evaluation loop catchers.
- A λ calculus interpreter in common-lisp and a compiler to common lisp lambda abstractions.
- Compiler transformations and simplifications are currently only β-reducing in normal order with loop-catching and maximum allowed steps, closing possibly open terms, full renaming of bound variables, then switching to common-lisp syntax and returning the resulting common-lisp closure.
For the base of this implementation I just followed Barendrecht and Barendsen's 1994 book "Introduction to Lambda Calculus" [BarBar84]. TBA representations come with respective papers (see references below), which I am currently implementing.
#### Tested
By adding a catch-loop stepper-based reducer of the standard representation, I have been able to use cl-quickcheck on arbitrary generated terms, and
quickcheck also examples, theorems, and lemmas from [BarBar84].
Extensive manually written tests are performed as well.
Run all tests for CCL and SBCL by loading `run-all-tests.lisp`, or for a particular common lisp implementation from the command line for example as `ccl -b -l run-all-tests.lisp`.
#### Documented
I used the principle of literal programming, with comments in plain text format. The beginning of each file should be informative of the file contents.
# TODO
Immediate TODO goals, in my priority order, starting from highest priority.
- Implement Tromp's cross interpreter for SKI-terms.
- Add transformation of SKI-calculus terms to WebAssembly.
- Implement more encodings or/and replace them with primitives of a target language (e.g. WebAssembly).
- Find a nicer way around printing keywords with their dots (print related functions in ui.lisp are messy!)
- Implement UI for steppers.
- Find a faster encoding for natural numbers or integers, or/and get common lisp (or other target languages, such as the above mentioned stack machine)
- Compile to my computer's assembly (with the help of disassembly).
- Unify the 3 UI "modes" into one big REPL. Low priority because it's probably not that relevant to the main goals of this project.
# References
In several places in documentation and in comments, I refer to the following publications, in LaTeX bibtex-style alpha.
- [Bar84] **The Lambda Calculus: Its Syntax and Semantics**, H.P. Barendregt, *Elsevier (1984)*
- [BarBar84] **Introduction to lambda calculus**, H.P. Barendregt and E.Barendsen, *Nieuw archief voor wisenkunde 4, 337-372 (1984)*
- [Tro18] **Functional Bits : Lambda Calculus based Algorithmic Information Theory**, J. Tromp, * (2018)*
- [Mog94] **Efficient Self-Interpretation in Lambda Calculus**, T. Mogensen, *Journal of Functional Programming 2, (1994)*