GHC core representation

[Andrew Tolmach]

Dear Haskellers,

Many months after the topic was first raised, there is finally a draft
document describing a formal external syntax for GHC's "Core"
intermediate language.    It is available from

http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~apt/ext-core.ps

Those who wish to experiment seriously with the format described
can download the latest "HEAD" experimental version of GHC.
Using the "-fext-core" option when compiling "foo.hs" will generate
a file "foo.core" (in additition to any other outputs specified).

The document currently gives only an informal semantics "Core;"
a much more formal semantics -- which I view as
a very important thing to have in practice -- is in progress=20
but not quite ready for public scrutiny.=20

As this is very much a draft (you'll see the holes!), feedback is
welcome,=20
but due to the  GHC-internals nature of this topic, please direct your
comments
to glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org or to me personally
at apt@cs.pdx.edu.  I'll be out of email contact for the next
month, though, so don't expect replies until July!

- Andrew Tolmach