<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<meta name="generator" content="AsciiDoc 8.6.10">
<title>XML</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="./asciidoc.css" type="text/css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="./pygments.css" type="text/css">


<script type="text/javascript" src="./asciidoc.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
/*<![CDATA[*/
asciidoc.install();
/*]]>*/
</script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="./mlton.css" type="text/css">
</head>
<body class="article">
<div id="banner">
<div id="banner-home">
<a href="./Home">MLton 20201002</a>
</div>
</div>
<div id="header">
<h1>XML</h1>
</div>
<div id="content">
<div id="preamble">
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p><a href="XML">XML</a> is an <a href="IntermediateLanguage">IntermediateLanguage</a>, translated from <a href="CoreML">CoreML</a> by
<a href="Defunctorize">Defunctorize</a>, optimized by <a href="XMLSimplify">XMLSimplify</a>, and translated by
<a href="Monomorphise">Monomorphise</a> to <a href="SXML">SXML</a>.</p></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_description">Description</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p><a href="XML">XML</a> is polymorphic, higher-order, with flat patterns.  Every
<a href="XML">XML</a> expression is annotated with its type.  Polymorphic
generalization is made explicit through type variables annotating
<span class="monospaced">val</span> and <span class="monospaced">fun</span> declarations.  Polymorphic instantiation is made
explicit by specifying type arguments at variable references.  <a href="XML">XML</a>
patterns can not be nested and can not contain wildcards, constraints,
flexible records, or layering.</p></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_implementation">Implementation</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
<a href="https://github.com/MLton/mlton/blob/master/mlton/xml/xml.sig"><span class="monospaced">xml.sig</span></a>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<a href="https://github.com/MLton/mlton/blob/master/mlton/xml/xml.fun"><span class="monospaced">xml.fun</span></a>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<a href="https://github.com/MLton/mlton/blob/master/mlton/xml/xml-tree.sig"><span class="monospaced">xml-tree.sig</span></a>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<a href="https://github.com/MLton/mlton/blob/master/mlton/xml/xml-tree.fun"><span class="monospaced">xml-tree.fun</span></a>
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_type_checking">Type Checking</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p><a href="XML">XML</a> also has a type checker, used for debugging.  At present, the
type checker is also the best specification of the type system of
<a href="XML">XML</a>.  If you need more details, the type checker
(<a href="https://github.com/MLton/mlton/blob/master/mlton/xml/type-check.sig"><span class="monospaced">type-check.sig</span></a>,
<a href="https://github.com/MLton/mlton/blob/master/mlton/xml/type-check.fun"><span class="monospaced">type-check.fun</span></a>), is pretty short.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Since the type checker does not affect the output of the compiler
(unless it reports an error), it can be turned off.  The type checker
recursively descends the program, checking that the type annotating
each node is the same as the type synthesized from the types of the
expressions subnodes.</p></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_details_and_notes">Details and Notes</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p><a href="XML">XML</a> uses the same atoms as <a href="CoreML">CoreML</a>, hence all identifiers
(constructors, variables, etc.) are unique and can have properties
attached to them.  Finally, <a href="XML">XML</a> has a simplifier (<a href="XMLShrink">XMLShrink</a>),
which implements a reduction system.</p></div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_types">Types</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p><a href="XML">XML</a> types are either type variables or applications of n-ary type
constructors.  There are many utility functions for constructing and
destructing types involving built-in type constructors.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>A type scheme binds list of type variables in a type.  The only
interesting operation on type schemes is the application of a type
scheme to a list of types, which performs a simultaneous substitution
of the type arguments for the bound type variables of the scheme.  For
the purposes of type checking, it is necessary to know the type scheme
of variables, constructors, and primitives.  This is done by
associating the scheme with the identifier using its property list.
This approach is used instead of the more traditional environment
approach for reasons of speed.</p></div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_xmltree">XmlTree</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Before defining <span class="monospaced">XML</span>, the signature for language <a href="XML">XML</a>, we need to
define an auxiliary signature <span class="monospaced">XML_TREE</span>, that contains the datatype
declarations for the expression trees of <a href="XML">XML</a>.  This is done solely
for the purpose of modularity&#8201;&#8212;&#8201;it allows the simplifier and type
checker to be defined by separate functors (which take a structure
matching <span class="monospaced">XML_TREE</span>).  Then, <span class="monospaced">Xml</span> is defined as the signature for a
module containing the expression trees, the simplifier, and the type
checker.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Both constructors and variables can have type schemes, hence both
constructor and variable references specify the instance of the scheme
at the point of references.  An instance is specified with a vector of
types, which corresponds to the type variables in the scheme.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><a href="XML">XML</a> patterns are flat (i.e. not nested).  A pattern is a
constructor with an optional argument variable.  Patterns only occur
in <span class="monospaced">case</span> expressions.  To evaluate a case expression, compare the
test value sequentially against each pattern.  For the first pattern
that matches, destruct the value if necessary to bind the pattern
variables and evaluate the corresponding expression.  If no pattern
matches, evaluate the default.  All patterns of a case statement are
of the same variant of <span class="monospaced">Pat.t</span>, although this is not enforced by ML&#8217;s
type system.  The type checker, however, does enforce this.  Because
tuple patterns are irrefutable, there will only ever be one tuple
pattern in a case expression and there will be no default.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><a href="XML">XML</a> contains value, exception, and mutually recursive function
declarations.  There are no free type variables in <a href="XML">XML</a>.  All type
variables are explicitly bound at either a value or function
declaration.  At some point in the future, exception declarations may
go away, and exceptions may be represented with a single datatype
containing a <span class="monospaced">unit ref</span> component to implement genericity.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><a href="XML">XML</a> expressions are like those of <a href="CoreML">CoreML</a>, with the following
exceptions.  There are no records expressions.  After type inference,
all records (some of which may have originally been tuples in the
source) are converted to tuples, because once flexible record patterns
have been resolved, tuple labels are superfluous.  Tuple components
are ordered based on the field ordering relation.  <a href="XML">XML</a> eta expands
primitives and constructors so that there are always fully applied.
Hence, the only kind of value of arrow type is a lambda.  This
property is useful for flow analysis and later in code generation.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>An <a href="XML">XML</a> program is a list of toplevel datatype declarations and a
body expression.  Because datatype declarations are not generative,
the defunctorizer can safely move them to toplevel.</p></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="footnotes"><hr></div>
<div id="footer">
<div id="footer-text">
</div>
<div id="footer-badges">
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
