[Haskell-cafe] Thoughts on program annotations.

[Max Bolingbroke]

On 4 March 2011 06:32, Jason Dusek <jason.dusek at gmail.com> wrote:
>    --  From https://github.com/solidsnack/bash/blob/c718de36d349efc9ac073a2c7082742c45606769/hs/Language/Bash/Syntax.hs
>
>    data Annotated t = Annotated t (Statement t)
>    data Statement t = SimpleCommand Expression [Expression]
>                     | ...
>                     | IfThen (Annotated t) (Annotated t)
>                     | ...

I use this a variant of approach quite extensively and it works well
for me. My scheme is:

data Statement t = SimpleCommand Expression [Expression]
                 | ...
                 | IfThen (t (Statement t)) (t (Statement t))
                 | ...

This is a slightly more efficient representation because it lets you
unpack the "t" field of your Annotated data constructor. For example,
what would in your system would be:

type MyStatement = Statement (Int, Int)

Would in my system be:

data Ann s = Ann Int Int s
type MyStatement = Statement Ann

i.e. instead of allocating both a Statement and a (,) at each level we
allocate just a Ann at each level.

In this system you will probably find it convenient to have a
typeclass inhabited by each possible annotation type:

class Copointed t where
  extract :: t a -> a

instance Copointed Ann where
  extract (Ann _ _ x) = x

Anyway, this is only a minor efficiency concern -- your scheme looks
solid to me as well.

Cheers,
Max