[Haskell-cafe] A Strict GCL Interpreter in Haskell

[Tillmann Rendel]

Hi Hector,

Hector Guilarte wrote:
> 1) Since Haskell is Lazy, and my GCL program is being interpreted in Haskell
> then my GCL is Lazy too (I know is not as simple as that but believe me,
> somehow it is behaving lazy). The problem is that it can't be lazy (said to
> me by my teacher on monday).

> evalExpr:: Expr -> Tabla -> Int
> evalExpr expr tabla =
>     let salida = (snd (evalAritmetico expr tabla))
>     in salida `seq` if (isLeft salida) then error (getLeft salida)
>                               else getRight salida

I think the problem with your code is that you call error, instead of 
reporting the error back to the caller. evalExpr can go wrong (consider 
5 / 0), but this fact is not represented in the type:

   evalExpr:: Expr -> Tabla -> Int

The type says that for all expressions and all symbol tables, you can 
produce an int result. But that is not true! So try using this more 
adequate type:

   evalExpr :: Expr -> Tabla -> Either String Int

Now, for all expressions and symbol tables, evalExpr either can compute 
an integer result, or it informs you that something went wrong. If you 
have these kinds of types on all your functions, your main program 
becomes something like:

   main = do
     code <- readAndParseFile "somefile"
     case evalProgram code of
       Left error -> putStrLn ("Error: " ++ error)
       Right () -> putStrLn "Worked fine!"

So if you need fine-grained control over error-handling, add explicit 
error handling, and do not use the error function.

Good luck!

   Tillmann