H98 Report: expression syntax glitch

[Ross Paterson]

On Tue, Feb 26, 2002 at 08:23:03AM -0800, Simon Peyton-Jones wrote:
> I didn't phrase it right.   I meant that a let/lambda/if always
> extends to the next relevant (not part of a smaller expression)
> punctuation symbol; and if that phrase parses as an exp
> that's fine, otherwise it's a parse error.  So I should not really
> speak in terms of 'ambiguity'.
> 
> Perhaps we can simply say that 
> 	let .. in exp
> is legal only if the phrase is followed by one of the punctuation
> symbols.  That's nice, because we don't need to talk of
> "not part of a smaller expression".

OK, so you have a context-free grammar qualified by a rule forbidding
some of the derivations of that grammar.

Another solution would be to subdivide exp^10 using a superscript I've
called A or B from lack of imagination:

   exp10A -> \ apat[1] ... apat[n] -> exp	(lambda abstraction, n>=1)
           | let decls in exp			(let expression)
           | if exp then exp else exp		(conditional)
   exp10B -> case exp of { alts }		(case expression)
           | do { stmts }			(do expression)
           | fexp

Only the latter sort can be followed by infix operators or type signatures.
We could extend the distinction to the exp^i (here x ranges over {A,B}):

   exp -> exp0B :: [context =>] type		(expression type signature)
        | exp0
   expi -> expiA
         | expiB
   expix -> expi+1B [qop(n,i) expi+1x]
          | lexpix
          | rexpix
   lexpix -> (lexpiB | expi+1B) qop(l,i) expi+1x
   lexp6x -> - exp7x
   rexpix -> expi+1B qop(r,i) (rexpix | expi+1x)

and the rules for sections would be

   aexp -> ...
         | ( expi+1B qop(a,i) )			(left section)
         | ( qop(a,i) expi+1 )			(right section)

It's complicated, but it does at least specify precisely the language
and parses we want in a single context-free description.