//! In this example we build an [S-expression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-expression) //! parser and tiny [lisp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language)) interpreter. //! Lisp is a simple type of language made up of Atoms and Lists, forming easily parsable trees. use winnow::{ ascii::{alpha1, digit1, multispace0, multispace1}, combinator::alt, combinator::repeat, combinator::{cut_err, opt}, combinator::{delimited, preceded, terminated}, error::VerboseError, token::one_of, IResult, Parser, }; /// We start with a top-level function to tie everything together, letting /// us call eval on a string directly pub fn eval_from_str(src: &str) -> Result { parse_expr(src) .map_err(|e: winnow::error::ErrMode>| format!("{:#?}", e)) .and_then(|(_, exp)| eval_expression(exp).ok_or_else(|| "Eval failed".to_string())) } /// For parsing, we start by defining the types that define the shape of data that we want. /// In this case, we want something tree-like /// The remaining half is Lists. We implement these as recursive Expressions. /// For a list of numbers, we have `'(1 2 3)`, which we'll parse to: /// ``` /// Expr::Quote(vec![Expr::Constant(Atom::Num(1)), /// Expr::Constant(Atom::Num(2)), /// Expr::Constant(Atom::Num(3))]) /// Quote takes an S-expression and prevents evaluation of it, making it a data /// structure that we can deal with programmatically. Thus any valid expression /// is also a valid data structure in Lisp itself. #[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Clone)] pub enum Expr { Constant(Atom), /// (func-name arg1 arg2) Application(Box, Vec), /// (if predicate do-this) If(Box, Box), /// (if predicate do-this otherwise-do-this) IfElse(Box, Box, Box), /// '(3 (if (+ 3 3) 4 5) 7) Quote(Vec), } /// We now wrap this type and a few other primitives into our Atom type. /// Remember from before that Atoms form one half of our language. #[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Clone)] pub enum Atom { Num(i32), Keyword(String), Boolean(bool), BuiltIn(BuiltIn), } /// Now, the most basic type. We define some built-in functions that our lisp has #[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Clone, Copy)] pub enum BuiltIn { Plus, Minus, Times, Divide, Equal, Not, } /// With types defined, we move onto the top-level expression parser! fn parse_expr(i: &str) -> IResult<&str, Expr, VerboseError<&str>> { preceded( multispace0, alt((parse_constant, parse_application, parse_if, parse_quote)), ) .parse_next(i) } /// We then add the Expr layer on top fn parse_constant(i: &str) -> IResult<&str, Expr, VerboseError<&str>> { parse_atom.map(Expr::Constant).parse_next(i) } /// Now we take all these simple parsers and connect them. /// We can now parse half of our language! fn parse_atom(i: &str) -> IResult<&str, Atom, VerboseError<&str>> { alt(( parse_num, parse_bool, parse_builtin.map(Atom::BuiltIn), parse_keyword, )) .parse_next(i) } /// Next up is number parsing. We're keeping it simple here by accepting any number (> 1) /// of digits but ending the program if it doesn't fit into an i32. fn parse_num(i: &str) -> IResult<&str, Atom, VerboseError<&str>> { alt(( digit1.try_map(|digit_str: &str| digit_str.parse::().map(Atom::Num)), preceded("-", digit1).map(|digit_str: &str| Atom::Num(-digit_str.parse::().unwrap())), )) .parse_next(i) } /// Our boolean values are also constant, so we can do it the same way fn parse_bool(i: &str) -> IResult<&str, Atom, VerboseError<&str>> { alt(( "#t".map(|_| Atom::Boolean(true)), "#f".map(|_| Atom::Boolean(false)), )) .parse_next(i) } fn parse_builtin(i: &str) -> IResult<&str, BuiltIn, VerboseError<&str>> { // alt gives us the result of first parser that succeeds, of the series of // parsers we give it alt(( parse_builtin_op, // map lets us process the parsed output, in this case we know what we parsed, // so we ignore the input and return the BuiltIn directly "not".map(|_| BuiltIn::Not), )) .parse_next(i) } /// Continuing the trend of starting from the simplest piece and building up, /// we start by creating a parser for the built-in operator functions. fn parse_builtin_op(i: &str) -> IResult<&str, BuiltIn, VerboseError<&str>> { // one_of matches one of the characters we give it let (i, t) = one_of("+-*/=").parse_next(i)?; // because we are matching single character tokens, we can do the matching logic // on the returned value Ok(( i, match t { '+' => BuiltIn::Plus, '-' => BuiltIn::Minus, '*' => BuiltIn::Times, '/' => BuiltIn::Divide, '=' => BuiltIn::Equal, _ => unreachable!(), }, )) } /// The next easiest thing to parse are keywords. /// We introduce some error handling combinators: `context` for human readable errors /// and `cut_err` to prevent back-tracking. /// /// Put plainly: `preceded(":", cut_err(alpha1))` means that once we see the `:` /// character, we have to see one or more alphabetic characters or the input is invalid. fn parse_keyword(i: &str) -> IResult<&str, Atom, VerboseError<&str>> { preceded(":", cut_err(alpha1)) .context("keyword") .map(|sym_str: &str| Atom::Keyword(sym_str.to_string())) .parse_next(i) } /// We can now use our new combinator to define the rest of the `Expr`s. /// /// Starting with function application, we can see how the parser mirrors our data /// definitions: our definition is `Application(Box, Vec)`, so we know /// that we need to parse an expression and then parse 0 or more expressions, all /// wrapped in an S-expression. /// /// tuples are themselves a parser, used to sequence parsers together, so we can translate this /// directly and then map over it to transform the output into an `Expr::Application` fn parse_application(i: &str) -> IResult<&str, Expr, VerboseError<&str>> { let application_inner = (parse_expr, repeat(0.., parse_expr)) .map(|(head, tail)| Expr::Application(Box::new(head), tail)); // finally, we wrap it in an s-expression s_exp(application_inner).parse_next(i) } /// Because `Expr::If` and `Expr::IfElse` are so similar (we easily could have /// defined `Expr::If` to have an `Option` for the else block), we parse both /// in a single function. /// /// In fact, we define our parser as if `Expr::If` was defined with an Option in it, /// we have the `opt` combinator which fits very nicely here. fn parse_if(i: &str) -> IResult<&str, Expr, VerboseError<&str>> { let if_inner = preceded( // here to avoid ambiguity with other names starting with `if`, if we added // variables to our language, we say that if must be terminated by at least // one whitespace character terminated("if", multispace1), cut_err((parse_expr, parse_expr, opt(parse_expr))), ) .map(|(pred, true_branch, maybe_false_branch)| { if let Some(false_branch) = maybe_false_branch { Expr::IfElse( Box::new(pred), Box::new(true_branch), Box::new(false_branch), ) } else { Expr::If(Box::new(pred), Box::new(true_branch)) } }) .context("if expression"); s_exp(if_inner).parse_next(i) } /// A quoted S-expression is list data structure. /// /// This example doesn't have the symbol atom, but by adding variables and changing /// the definition of quote to not always be around an S-expression, we'd get them /// naturally. fn parse_quote(i: &str) -> IResult<&str, Expr, VerboseError<&str>> { // this should look very straight-forward after all we've done: // we find the `'` (quote) character, use cut_err to say that we're unambiguously // looking for an s-expression of 0 or more expressions, and then parse them preceded("'", cut_err(s_exp(repeat(0.., parse_expr)))) .context("quote") .map(Expr::Quote) .parse_next(i) } /// Before continuing, we need a helper function to parse lists. /// A list starts with `(` and ends with a matching `)`. /// By putting whitespace and newline parsing here, we can avoid having to worry about it /// in much of the rest of the parser. //.parse_next/ /// Unlike the previous functions, this function doesn't take or consume input, instead it /// takes a parsing function and returns a new parsing function. fn s_exp<'a, O1, F>(inner: F) -> impl Parser<&'a str, O1, VerboseError<&'a str>> where F: Parser<&'a str, O1, VerboseError<&'a str>>, { delimited( '(', preceded(multispace0, inner), cut_err(preceded(multispace0, ')')).context("closing paren"), ) } /// And that's it! /// We can now parse our entire lisp language. /// /// But in order to make it a little more interesting, we can hack together /// a little interpreter to take an Expr, which is really an /// [Abstract Syntax Tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_syntax_tree) (AST), /// and give us something back /// This function tries to reduce the AST. /// This has to return an Expression rather than an Atom because quoted `s_expressions` /// can't be reduced fn eval_expression(e: Expr) -> Option { match e { // Constants and quoted s-expressions are our base-case Expr::Constant(_) | Expr::Quote(_) => Some(e), // we then recursively `eval_expression` in the context of our special forms // and built-in operators Expr::If(pred, true_branch) => { let reduce_pred = eval_expression(*pred)?; if get_bool_from_expr(reduce_pred)? { eval_expression(*true_branch) } else { None } } Expr::IfElse(pred, true_branch, false_branch) => { let reduce_pred = eval_expression(*pred)?; if get_bool_from_expr(reduce_pred)? { eval_expression(*true_branch) } else { eval_expression(*false_branch) } } Expr::Application(head, tail) => { let reduced_head = eval_expression(*head)?; let reduced_tail = tail .into_iter() .map(eval_expression) .collect::>>()?; if let Expr::Constant(Atom::BuiltIn(bi)) = reduced_head { Some(Expr::Constant(match bi { BuiltIn::Plus => Atom::Num( reduced_tail .into_iter() .map(get_num_from_expr) .collect::>>()? .into_iter() .sum(), ), BuiltIn::Times => Atom::Num( reduced_tail .into_iter() .map(get_num_from_expr) .collect::>>()? .into_iter() .product(), ), BuiltIn::Equal => Atom::Boolean( reduced_tail .iter() .zip(reduced_tail.iter().skip(1)) .all(|(a, b)| a == b), ), BuiltIn::Not => { if reduced_tail.len() != 1 { return None; } else { Atom::Boolean(!get_bool_from_expr( reduced_tail.first().cloned().unwrap(), )?) } } BuiltIn::Minus => { Atom::Num(if let Some(first_elem) = reduced_tail.first().cloned() { let fe = get_num_from_expr(first_elem)?; reduced_tail .into_iter() .map(get_num_from_expr) .collect::>>()? .into_iter() .skip(1) .fold(fe, |a, b| a - b) } else { Default::default() }) } BuiltIn::Divide => { Atom::Num(if let Some(first_elem) = reduced_tail.first().cloned() { let fe = get_num_from_expr(first_elem)?; reduced_tail .into_iter() .map(get_num_from_expr) .collect::>>()? .into_iter() .skip(1) .fold(fe, |a, b| a / b) } else { Default::default() }) } })) } else { None } } } } /// To start we define a couple of helper functions fn get_num_from_expr(e: Expr) -> Option { if let Expr::Constant(Atom::Num(n)) = e { Some(n) } else { None } } fn get_bool_from_expr(e: Expr) -> Option { if let Expr::Constant(Atom::Boolean(b)) = e { Some(b) } else { None } }