EECS 321 Programming Languages: Homework 3

Due: Friday, January 27th, 2012, noon

Part 1 – Functions that Accept Multiple Arguments

Start with the F1WAE interpreter, and extend the implementation to support any number of arguments to a function (including zero), and any number of arguments (including zero) in a function application:

  <FunDef> = {deffun {<id> <id>*} <FnWAE>}
  <FnWAE> = <number>
          | {+ <FnWAE> <FnWAE>}
          | {- <FnWAE> <FnWAE>}
          | {with {<id> <FnWAE>} <FnWAE>}
          | <id>
          | {<id> <FnWAE>*}

Since you must change the F1WAE datatype, and since different people may change it in different ways, you must provide a parse function this time, which accepts a quoted expression and produces an FnWAE value. For parsing, assume that any symbol other than '+, '-, or 'with can be a function name for a function call. Also, you must provide a parse-defn function that takes one (quoted) deffun form and produces a FunDef value.

At run-time, a new error is now possible: function application with the wrong number of arguments. Your interp function should detect the mismatch and report an error that includes the words "wrong arity".

Some examples:

  (test (interp (parse '{f 1 2})
                (list (parse-defn '{deffun {f x y} {+ x y}})))
        3)
  (test (interp (parse '{+ {f} {f}})
                (list (parse-defn '{deffun {f} 5})))
        10)
  (test/exn (interp (parse '{f 1})
                    (list (parse-defn '{deffun {f x y} {+ x y}})))
            "wrong arity")

A function would be ill-defined if two of its argument <id>s were the same. To prevent this problem, your parse-defn function should detect this problem and reports a "bad syntax" error. For example, (parse-defn '{deffun {f x x} x}) should report a "bad syntax" error, while (parse-defn '{deffun {f x y} x}) should produce a FunDef value.

Remember that the PLAI language provides the following useful function:

• map—takes a function and a list, and applies the function to each element in the list, returning a list of results. For example, if sexps is a list of S-expressions to parse, (map parse sexps) produces a list of FnWAEs by parsing each S-expression.