% Simple program to close terms using lambdas % Authors: Rohan Jacob-Rao & Matthias Puech % Last edited: 26 Aug 2014 --coverage %{{#Closing terms with free variables We'll first defining what terms are in the untyped lambda calculus.}}% LF tm : type = | lam : (tm -> tm) -> tm | app : tm -> tm -> tm ; %{{Recall that Beluga has two levels of language: the index level (for representing data) and the computation-level. Note that type name and constructors for an index-level type are lower case. ##Open terms in Beluga One thing that's unique about Beluga is that we can easily represent open terms, that is, terms with free variables. For example, the term `x + 1` is open because it contains the free variable `x`. In Beluga, we can represent such terms if we declare the free variable to be part of a "context". So a term in Beluga has a context as part of its type, which we shall see in the example. Something we might want to do is interpret the free variable in an open term as the argument of a lambda term. That is, we might want to convert `x + 1` to a lambda term `lam (\x -> x + 1)`. This second term will no longer need `x` in its context, as the variable is now bound to the lambda. If we have a term with multiple free variables, we can apply this process repeatedly to turn them all into bound variables. The aim of this example is to write a function to do this in Beluga. ##Simple case: removing one free variable Let's start by closing a term with just one free variable. Observe that the free variables in the argument and return value are expressed in the type signature. The parameter type is a term with one variable in its context, whereas the return type has an empty context (so return values of this function must be closed if they are to be well-typed).}}% rec close-only1 : [x:tm |- tm] -> [ |- tm] = fn t => let [x:tm |- T] = t in [ |- lam \u. T] ; %{{The idea of the function body is simply to make the term's free variable a lambda variable. We name the free variable `x` and replace it with the lambda variable `u`. Notice how we do this by writing `T` like a function of `x`. Also note how the term is named with an upper case letter, which is required to distinguish index-level terms. ##Removing one free variable (out of many) We now want to write a function that closes more general terms, i.e. terms with more free variables. In order for such terms to be well-typed, however, their free variables must be mentioned in their contexts. Hence we specify that our contexts are lists of terms, using the `schema` keyword.}}% schema ctx = tm; %{{Now we can try to replace just the last free variable in the context list with a lambda abstraction. Notice the new context parameter in braces, which we use as part of the context of the input term. (The parameter type is "dependent" on `g`.) We distinguish one variable `x` from the input context, and remove it from the output context.}}% rec close1 : {g:ctx} [g, x:tm |- tm] -> [g |- tm] = mlam g => fn t => let [g, x:tm |- T] = t in [g |- lam \u. T] ; %{{In this function we must use "mlam", which is the equivalent of "fn" for context parameters. Notice that the function body is very similar to that of `close-only1`. The only difference is that `T` may now depend on other variables in its context besides `x`. But since we are only replacing the `x` variable, we need a way to say to skip over the other variables. The `..` symbol represents the free variables in `g` without naming them. ##General case: removing all free variables The idea here is to use `close1` repeatedly to replace all free variables with lambda abstractions. Notice the new type signature, where the parameter type has a general context (with any number of free variables) and the return type has the empty context, implying that the output term is closed.}}% rec close : {g:ctx} [g |- tm] -> [ |- tm] = mlam g => fn t => case t of | [ |- _] => t | [g', x:tm |- T] => close [g'] (close1 [g'] t) ; %{{The function is recursive on the input's context list (not the actual term!). The base case is when the context is empty. This means that the term is already closed, so we simply return it. We need not even name the unboxed term. The recursive case produces the scenario we had in `close1`: a nonempty context with at least one free variable `x`. In this case we apply `close1` to remove `x` from the term and then recursively call `close` with a smaller context. We can also write the `close1` function inline to produce a more concise solution.}}% rec close' : {g:ctx} [g |- tm] -> [ |- tm] = mlam g => fn t => case t of | [ |- _] => t | [g', x:tm |- T] => close' [g'] [g' |- lam \u. T] ; %{{Notice how Beluga allows us to perform pattern matching on both the context and the actual term in a boxed expression. Also notice how we have the ability to substitute variables built in to the language. The use of "higher order abstract syntax" lets us avoid name clashing issues when we substitute variables.}}%