README.md

sumtype

A macro for Janet for creating sum types/tagged unions.

A sum type is a word in type theory for a tagged union. Using one of these enable us to define a type that can have n distinct shapes, which we can operate on by e.g. pattern matching on the data.

It is useful for expressing things like the Maybe type and even some data structures, like linked lists and trees.

API

Given that the module is imported as (import sumtype), the API is as follows:

• Macro (sumtype/declare sum-type-name & type-instance-descriptors)

Where sum-type-name is the name of the sum-type, which will be used as a symbol, and type-instance-descriptors are the rest arguments, where each is a tuple of the form [type-name & parameters]. These will be used to define either the singleton "empty" value or constructors, in the form of functions, plus type predicates that are the type's name with a trailing "?", as in <type-name>?.

• Function (isa? type instance)

Checks whether the supplied instance is of the type type. type is used as a symbol here.

Example

Maybe

(import sumtype)
(sumtype/declare maybe
                  [just a]
                  [nothing])

# since `nothing` is 0-arity, it is a singleton value.
(def v0 nothing)
# `just` is a constructor accepting one value
(def v1 (just 1))

(assert (true? (maybe? v0)))
(assert (true? (nothing? v0)))
(assert (true? (just? v1)))

(def [ok err] (protect
                (just nil))) # should signal an error
(assert (not ok))

(assert (match v0
          [:just x] (error "unreachable")
          [:nothing] :ok))

(assert (match v1
          [:just x] :ok
          [:nothing] (error "unreachable")))

(defn maybe-map [m f]
  (match m
    [:just x] (just (f x))
    [:nothing] (nothing)))

(-> (just 1)
    (maybe-map (fn [n] (+ n 1)))
    (match [:just x] x) # unwrapping, no match here means `nil`
    (= 2)
    (assert "should have been incremented"))

Tree

(sumtype/declare
  tree
  [leaf]
  [node v left right])

(def my-tree
  (node
    1 (node
      2 (node
          3 leaf (node
                 4 leaf leaf))
      leaf)))

(pp my-tree)

(defn walk [tree func]
  (match tree
    [:leaf] nil
    [:node v left right] (do
                            (func v)
                            (walk left func)
                            (walk right func))))

(walk my-tree (fn [a] (printf "%d, " a)))