Title

Indentation-sensitive syntax

Author

Status

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Abstract

This SRFI descibes a new syntax for Scheme, called I-expressions, whith equal descriptive power as S-expressions. The syntax uses indentation to group expressions, and has no special cases for semantic constructs of the language. It can be used both for program and data input.

It also allows mixing S-expressions and I-expressions freely, giving the programmer the ability to layout the code as to maximize readability.

Rationale

In the past, several non-S-expression syntaxes for various LISP dialects has been tested and thrown away. However, people seem not to be too happy about the S-expressions, especially not beginners, who regularly complain about "all those parentheses", so new syntaxes are invented, and dismissed from time to time. All of those have had one property in common which S-expressions did not share - they had special constructs for the various _semantic_ constructs of the LISP dialect they where constructed for.

Many languages uses parentheses, braces or backets to group statements or expressions of the language, and allows exta spaces and newlines to be used to arrange the expressions or stattements in a visually pleasing way. This, however, often comes back to bite the progammer, as an indentation leads him or her to think that the code is grouped in a specific way, when in fact, its parentheses, braces or brackets have been changed since the last time someone cared to reindent the code.

Recently, using indentation as the sole grouping constuct of a language has become popular with the advent of the Python programming language. This solves the problem of indentation going out of sync with the native grouping constuct of the language. Unfourtunately, the Python syntax uses special constructs for the various semantic constructs of the language, and the syntaxes of file input and interactive input differs slightly. In addition, the indentation syntax of Python only covers statements, not expessions and data.

Specification

Each line in a file is either empty (contains only whitepace and/or a comment), or contains some code, preceeded by some number of space and/or tab characters.

In the following syntax definition, this initial space, as well as linebreaks, is not included in the rules. Instead, preceding any matching, the leading space of each line is compared to the leading space of the last non-empty line preceeding it, and then removed. If the line is preceeded by more space than the last one was, the special symbol INDENT is added to the beginning of the line, and if it is preceeded by less space than the lastt one was, the special symbol DEDENT is added to the beginning of the line. It is an error if neither one of the leading space/tab seqquences are a prefix of the other, nor are they equal.

The special non-terminal symbol sexpr expands to any valid S-expression, and the special terminal symbol GROUP expands to the word "group" in the input stream. The GROUP symbol is used to allow lists whose first element is also a list. It is needed as the indentation of an empty line is not accounted for.

Following each production is a rule to compute the value of an expression matching the production. In those rules, the symbols $1 ... $n are to be replaced by the 1:st ... n:th matched subexpression.

expr -> QUOTE expr (list 'quote $2) expr -> QUASIQUOTE expr (list 'quasiquote $2) expr -> UNQUOTE expr (list 'unquote $2) expr -> head INDENT body DEDENT (append $1 $3) expr -> GROUP head INDENT body DEDENT (append $2 $4) expr -> GROUP INDENT body DEDENT $3 expr -> head (if (= (length $1) 1) (car $1) $1) expr -> GROUP head (if (= (length $2) 1) (car $2) $2) head-> expr head (append $1 $2) head-> expr (list expr) body -> expr body (cons $1 $2) body -> '()

Examples

define fac x if = x 0 1 * x fac - x 1 let group foo + 1 2 bar + 3 4 + foo bar Denser equivalents using more traditional S-expressions: define (fac x) if (= x 0) 1 * x fac (- x 1) let group foo (+ 1 2) bar (+ 3 4) + foo bar

Implementation

(use-modules (sugar))

----{ sugar.scm }---- (define-module (sugar)) (define-public group 'group) (define-public sugar-read-save read) (define-public sugar-load-save primitive-load) (define (readquote level port qt) (read-char port) (let ((char (peek-char port))) (if (or (eq? char #\space) (eq? char #

ewline) (eq? char #\ht)) (list qt) (list qt (sugar-read-save port))))) (define (readitem level port) (let ((char (peek-char port))) (cond ((eq? char #\`) (readquote level port 'quasiquote)) ((eq? char #\') (readquote level port 'quote)) ((eq? char #\,) (readquote level port 'unquote)) (t (sugar-read-save port))))) (define (indentation>? indentation1 indentation2) (let ((len1 (string-length indentation1)) (len2 (string-length indentation2))) (and (> len1 len2) (string=? indentation2 (substring indentation1 0 len2))))) (define (indentationlevel port) (define (indentationlevel) (if (or (eq? (peek-char port) #\space) (eq? (peek-char port) #\ht)) (cons (read-char port) (indentationlevel)) '())) (list->string (indentationlevel))) (define (clean line) (cond ((not (pair? line)) line) ((null? line) line) ((eq? (car line) 'group) (cdr line)) ((null? (car line)) (cdr line)) ((list? (car line)) (if (or (equal? (car line) '(quote)) (equal? (car line) '(quasiquote)) (equal? (car line) '(unquote))) (if (and (list? (cdr line)) (= (length (cdr line)) 1)) (cons (car (car line)) (cdr line)) (list (car (car line)) (cdr line))) (cons (clean (car line)) (cdr line)))) (#t line))) ;; Reads all subblocks of a block (define (readblocks level port) (let* ((read (readblock-clean level port)) (next-level (car read)) (block (cdr read))) (if (string=? next-level level) (let* ((reads (readblocks level port)) (next-next-level (car reads)) (next-blocks (cdr reads))) (if (eq? block '.) (if (pair? next-blocks) (cons next-next-level (car next-blocks)) (cons next-next-level next-blocks)) (cons next-next-level (cons block next-blocks)))) (cons next-level (list block))))) ;; Read one block of input (define (readblock level port) (let ((char (peek-char port))) (cond ((eof-object? char) (cons -1 char)) ((eq? char #

ewline) (read-char port) (let ((next-level (indentationlevel port))) (if (indentation>? next-level level) (readblocks next-level port) (cons next-level '())))) ((or (eq? char #\space) (eq? char #\ht)) (read-char port) (readblock level port)) (t (let* ((first (readitem level port)) (rest (readblock level port)) (level (car rest)) (block (cdr rest))) (if (eq? first '.) (if (pair? block) (cons level (car block)) rest) (cons level (cons first block)))))))) ;; reads a block and handles group, (quote), (unquote) and ;; (quasiquote). (define (readblock-clean level port) (let* ((read (readblock level port)) (next-level (car read)) (block (cdr read))) (if (or (not (list? block)) (> (length block) 1)) (cons next-level (clean block)) (if (= (length block) 1) (cons next-level (car block)) (cons next-level '.))))) (define-public (sugar-read . port) (let* ((read (readblock-clean "" (if (null? port) (current-input-port) (car port)))) (level (car read)) (block (cdr read))) (cond ((eq? block '.) '()) (t block)))) (define-public (sugar-load filename) (define (load port) (let ((inp (read port))) (if (eof-object? inp) #t (begin (eval inp) (load port))))) (load (open-input-file filename))) (define-public (sugar-enable) (set! read sugar-read) (set! primitive-load sugar-load)) (define-public (sugar-disable) (set! read sugar-read-save) (set! primitive-load sugar-load-save)) (sugar-enable) ----{ sugar.scm }----

Copyright

Copyright (C) 2005 by Egil Möller . All Rights Reserved.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.