Modularising inductive families Hsiang−Shang Ko and Jeremy Gibbons

Abstract

Dependently typed programmers are encouraged to use inductive families to integrate constraints with data construction. Different constraints are used in different contexts, leading to different versions of datatypes for the same data structure. Modular implementation of common operations for these structurally similar datatypes has been a longstanding problem. We propose a datatype-generic solution based on McBride's datatype ornaments, exploiting an isomorphism whose interpretation borrows ideas from realisability. Relevant properties of the operations are separately proven for each constraint, and after the programmer selects several constraints to impose on a basic datatype and synthesises an inductive family incorporating those constraints, the operations can be routinely upgraded to work with the synthesised inductive family.

There is a revised version of this paper in Progress in Informatics.

Supplementary material

The accompanying Agda code can be found here: a plain Agda file or a syntax-highlighted, browsable HTML version.

Two talks were given at DTP'11 and WGP'11: The DTP'11 version (which was reprised in a Shonan meeting on DTP) is more freestyle and includes a development of ornamental-algebraic ornamentation, while the WGP'11 version has a clearer structure and elaborates more on the background.

A related talk on numerical representations, which was more about Pierre and Conor's coherence property, was given at Fun in the Afternoon in Oxford, February 2012.

Book Title Workshop on Generic Programming

Pages 13−24

Publisher ACM

Series WGP'11